Characterization of the Kenyan Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Gut Microbiota: A First Look at Tropical and Sub-Saharan African Bee Associated Microbiomes.

Jacqueline Wahura Waweru,Bernard Slippers,Juan C Paredes,Yosef Hamba Tola,Gregory D D Hurst

doi:10.3390/microorganisms8111721

Jacqueline Wahura Waweru, Bernard Slippers + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8111721

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Abstract

Gut microbiota plays important roles in many physiological processes of the host including digestion, protection, detoxification, and development of immune responses. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) has emerged as model for gut-microbiota host interaction studies due to its gut microbiota being highly conserved and having a simple composition. A key gap in this model is understanding how the microbiome differs regionally, including sampling from the tropics and in particular from Africa. The African region is important from the perspective of the native diversity of the bees, and differences in landscape and bee management. Here, we characterized the honey bee gut microbiota in sub-Saharan Africa using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. We confirm the presence of the core gut microbiota members and highlight different compositions of these communities across regions. We found that bees from the coastal regions harbor a higher relative abundance and diversity on core members. Additionally, we showed that Gilliamella, Snodgrassella, and Frischella dominate in all locations, and that altitude and humidity affect Gilliamella abundance. In contrast, we found that Lactobacillus was less common compared temperate regions of the world. This study is a first comprehensive characterization of the gut microbiota of honey bees from sub-Saharan Africa and underscores the need to study microbiome diversity in other indigenous bee species and regions.

Highlights

Beekeeping has become an important tool to mitigate poverty, diversify income generation, and conserve biodiversity, in sub-Saharan Africa [1,2,3,4]
Core members include the two Gram−negative bacteria Gilliamella apicola and Snodgrassella alvi that belong to the Gammaproteobacteria class and reside in the ileum, a zone between the midgut and the rectum [30,31]
We speculate that the coastal abiotic conditions might be more suitable for the bee core gut microbiota members, we cannot exclude the effect of specific endemic flora that might have an impact on the bacterial community through pollen and nectar metabolism and nutrition

Summary

Introduction

Beekeeping has become an important tool to mitigate poverty, diversify income generation, and conserve biodiversity, in sub-Saharan Africa [1,2,3,4]. The other four core gut microbiota members are present in almost every worker bee and have been shown to induce additional important phenotypes.

Results

Conclusion