Impact of Nosema Disease and American Foulbrood on Gut Bacterial Communities of Honeybees Apis mellifera.

Abstract

Simple SummaryNosema ceranae and Paenibacillus larvae are virulent pathogenic microbes in honeybee adults and larvae, respectively. However, there is still a lack of data on their dysbiosis effect on gut bacteria in honeybees. The guts of control and infected bees of both diseases were analyzed for bacterial communities by next-generation sequencing. The statistical data showed that Nosema ceranae affected bacterial dysbiosis in the adult honeybees’ guts. The guts of Paenibacillus larvae-infected honeybee larvae did not differ from the guts of larvae not infected with P. larvae. These data could be applied to control pathogens in the apicultural industry. Honeybees, Apis mellifera, are important pollinators of many economically important crops. However, one of the reasons for their decline is pathogenic infection. Nosema disease and American foulbrood (AFB) disease are the most common bee pathogens that propagate in the gut of honeybees. This study investigated the impact of gut-propagating pathogens, including Nosema ceranae and Paenibacillus larvae, on bacterial communities in the gut of A. mellifera using 454-pyrosequencing. Pyrosequencing results showed that N. ceranae was implicated in the elimination of Serratia and the dramatic increase in Snodgrassella and Bartonella in adult bees’ guts, while bacterial communities of P. larvae-infected larvae were not affected by the infection. The results indicated that only N. ceranae had an impact on some core bacteria in the gut of A. mellifera through increasing core gut bacteria, therefore leading to the induction of dysbiosis in the bees’ gut.