Abstract
Global declines of insect pollinators jeopardize the delivery of pollination services in both agricultural and natural ecosystems. The importance of infectious diseases has been documented in honeybees, but there is little information on the extent to which these diseases are shared with other pollinator orders. Here, we establish for the first time the presence of three important bee viruses in hoverfly pollinators (Diptera: Syrphidae): black queen cell virus (BQCV), sacbrood virus (SBV) and deformed wing virus strain B (DWV-B). These viruses were detected in two Eristalis species, which are behavioural and morphological bee mimics and share a foraging niche with honeybees. Nucleotide sequences of viruses isolated from the Eristalis species and Apis mellifera were up to 99 and 100% identical for the two viruses, suggesting that these pathogens are being shared freely between bees and hoverflies. Interestingly, while replicative intermediates (negative strand virus) were not detected in the hoverflies, viral titres of SBV were similar to those found in A. mellifera. These results suggest that syrphid pollinators may play an important but previously unexplored role in pollinator disease dynamics.
Highlights
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a global problem for biodiversity and human health [1]
The positive-stranded RNA viruses found in managed honeybees (Apis mellifera and Apis ceranae) represent a key complex of potential EIDs that are shared with other wild bee pollinators [4,5]
Replication intermediates of sacbrood virus (SBV) or black queen cell virus (BQCV) were not detected in any hoverfly samples, suggesting lack of viral replication
Summary
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a global problem for biodiversity and human health [1]. The positive-stranded RNA viruses found in managed honeybees (Apis mellifera and Apis ceranae) represent a key complex of potential EIDs that are shared with other wild bee pollinators [4,5]. These viruses have been implicated in the declines of wild bee populations, leading to concern for the economic and ecological value of associated ecosystem services [6,7]. Viruses originally thought to be honeybee-specific are known to occur in and infect a wide range of wild bee species [8]. An approximated null distribution using 9999 replicate Monte Carlo simulations was used to account for zero/low counts
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