Abstract
RNA viruses, once considered specific to honey bees, are suspected of spilling over from managed bees into wild pollinators; however, transmission routes are largely unknown. A widely accepted yet untested hypothesis states that flowers serve as bridges in the transmission of viruses between bees. Here, using a series of controlled experiments with captive bee colonies, we examined the role of flowers in bee virus transmission. We first examined if honey bees deposit viruses on flowers and whether bumble bees become infected after visiting contaminated flowers. We then examined whether plant species differ in their propensity to harbor viruses and if bee visitation rates increase the likelihood of virus deposition on flowers. Our experiment demonstrated, for the first time, that honey bees deposit viruses on flowers. However, the two viruses we examined, black queen cell virus (BQCV) and deformed wing virus (DWV), were not equally distributed across plant species, suggesting that differences in floral traits, virus ecology and/or foraging behavior may mediate the likelihood of deposition. Bumble bees did not become infected after visiting flowers previously visited by honey bees suggesting that transmission via flowers may be a rare occurrence and contingent on multiplicative factors and probabilities such as infectivity of virus strain across bee species, immunocompetence, virus virulence, virus load, and the probability a bumble bee will contact a virus particle on a flower. Our study is among the first to experimentally examine the role of flowers in bee virus transmission and uncovers promising avenues for future research.
Highlights
Pathogens are among the top threats to bees causing colony losses, population declines, and a growing concern for food security and ecosystem function [1,2,3,4]
RNA virus loads in the two honey bee colonies were 104 and 109 genome copies per bee for deformed wing virus (DWV) and 108 and 106 genome copies per bee for black queen cell virus (BQCV)
Using a series of foraging experiments with captive honey bee colonies and arrays of flowering plant species, we experimentally demonstrated that honey bees deposit viruses on flowers
Summary
Pathogens are among the top threats to bees causing colony losses, population declines, and a growing concern for food security and ecosystem function [1,2,3,4]. The importance of pathogens to bees has garnered much attention over the past two decades, there are many unanswered questions regarding the dispersal mechanisms and transmission dynamics of bee pathogens [5]. Numerous pathogens have been detected across broad host ranges including solitary bees, bumble bees, honey bees, ants, wasps, and beetles [6,7,8]. Shared floral resources, which might act as dispersal platforms between comingling pollinator species, have been. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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