Dataset Information

Specific Cues Associated With Honey Bee Social Defence against Varroa destructor Infested Brood.

ABSTRACT: Social immunity forms an essential part of the defence repertoire of social insects. In response to infestation by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and its associated viruses, honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) have developed a specific behaviour (varroa-sensitive hygiene, or VSH) that helps protect the colony from this parasite. Brood cells heavily infested with mites are uncapped, the brood killed, and the cell contents removed. For this extreme sacrifice to be beneficial to the colony, the targeting of parasitized brood for removal must be accurate and selective. Here we show that varroa-infested brood produce uniquely identifiable cues that could be used by VSH-performing bees to identify with high specificity which brood cells to sacrifice. This selective elimination of mite-infested brood is a disease resistance strategy analogous to programmed cell death, where young bees likely to be highly dysfunctional as adults are sacrificed for the greater good of the colony.

SUBMITTER: Mondet F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4853723 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Specific Cues Associated With Honey Bee Social Defence against Varroa destructor Infested Brood.

Mondet Fanny F Kim Seo Hyun SH de Miranda Joachim R JR Beslay Dominique D Le Conte Yves Y Mercer Alison R AR

Scientific reports 20160503

Social immunity forms an essential part of the defence repertoire of social insects. In response to infestation by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and its associated viruses, honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) have developed a specific behaviour (varroa-sensitive hygiene, or VSH) that helps protect the colony from this parasite. Brood cells heavily infested with mites are uncapped, the brood killed, and the cell contents removed. For this extreme sacrifice to be beneficial to the colony, the ta ...[more]

PMID: 27140530

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Project description:Honey bees play important roles in pollination for many crops and wild plants, but have been facing great threats posed by various pathogens and parasites. Among them, Varroa destructor, an obligate ectoparasite of honey bees, is considered the most damaging. Within the last century, V. destructor shifted from the original host, the Asian honey bee Apis cerana to the new host, the European honey bee A. mellifera. However, the reproduction of Varroa mites, especially of different haplotypes in the two hosts, is still largely unknown. In this study, we first investigated the existing Varroa haplotypes in local colonies in southern China, and then compared the reproduction of different haplotypes on the worker brood of both the original and new hosts by artificial inoculation. We confirmed that there are two haplotypes of V. destructor in southern China, one is the Korea haplotype and the other is the China haplotype, and the two types parasitized different honey bee species. Although Varroa females from A. mellifera (Korea haplotype) are able to reproduce on the worker brood of both honey bee species, they showed better reproductive performance in the new host A. mellifera with significantly higher fecundity (number of offspring per mother mite) and reproductive rate (number of adult daughters per mother mite), suggesting that this parasite gains higher fitness after host shift. The data further showed that a short stay of Varroa females inside the A. cerana worker cells decreased their fecundity and especially the reproductive rate in a time-dependent manner, suggesting that the A. cerana worker cells may inhibit Varroa reproduction. In contrast, Varroa mites derived from A. cerana colonies (China haplotype) were entirely sterile in A. mellifera worker cells during two sequential inoculations, while the control mites from A. mellifera colonies (Korea haplotype) reproduced normally. In addition, all the infertile mites were found to defecate on the abdomen of bee pupae. We have revealed that two haplotypes of V. destructor exhibit differential reproduction on the worker brood of the original and new host honey bees, providing novel insights into the diversity and complexity of the reproduction of V. destructor.

Project description:BACKGROUND: The parasitic mite, Varroa destructor, is the most serious pest of the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, and has caused the death of millions of colonies worldwide. This mite reproduces in brood cells and parasitizes immature and adult bees. We investigated whether Varroa infestation induces changes in Apis mellifera gene expression, and whether there are genotypic differences that affect gene expression relevant to the bee's tolerance, as first steps toward unravelling mechanisms of host response and differences in susceptibility to Varroa parasitism. RESULTS: We explored the transcriptional response to mite parasitism in two genetic stocks of A. mellifera which differ in susceptibility to Varroa, comparing parasitized and non-parasitized full-sister pupae from both stocks. Bee expression profiles were analyzed using microarrays derived from honey bee ESTs whose annotation has recently been enhanced by results from the honey bee genome sequence. We measured differences in gene expression in two colonies of Varroa-susceptible and two colonies of Varroa-tolerant bees. We identified a set of 148 genes with significantly different patterns of expression: 32 varied with the presence of Varroa, 116 varied with bee genotype, and 2 with both. Varroa parasitism caused changes in the expression of genes related to embryonic development, cell metabolism and immunity. Bees tolerant to Varroa were mainly characterized by differences in the expression of genes regulating neuronal development, neuronal sensitivity and olfaction. Differences in olfaction and sensitivity to stimuli are two parameters that could, at least in part, account for bee tolerance to Varroa; differences in olfaction may be related to increased grooming and hygienic behavior, important behaviors known to be involved in Varroa tolerance. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that differences in behavior, rather than in the immune system, underlie Varroa tolerance in honey bees, and give an indication of the specific physiological changes found in parasitized bees. They provide a first step toward better understanding molecular pathways involved in this important host-parasite relationship.

Dataset Information

Specific Cues Associated With Honey Bee Social Defence against Varroa destructor Infested Brood.

Publications

Specific Cues Associated With Honey Bee Social Defence against Varroa destructor Infested Brood.

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