Trypanosomatid parasites infecting managed honeybees and wild solitary bees

Strobl, Verena; Yanez Amayo, Victor Orlando; Straub, Lars; Albrecht, Matthias; Neumann, Peter (2019). Trypanosomatid parasites infecting managed honeybees and wild solitary bees. International journal for parasitology, 49(8), pp. 605-613. Elsevier 10.1016/j.ijpara.2019.03.006

Preview

Text 1-s2.0-S0020751919301353-main.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (786kB) | Preview

The parasite Crithidia mellificae (Kinetoplastea: Trypanosomatidae) infects honeybees, Apis mellifera. No pathogenic effects have been found in individual hosts, despite positive correlations between infections and colony mortalities. The solitary bee Osmia cornuta might constitute a host, but controlled infections are lacking to date. Here, we challenged male and female O. cornuta and honeybee workers in laboratory cages with C. mellificae. No parasite cells were found in any control. Parasite numbers increased 6.6 fold in honeybees between days 6 and 19 p.i. and significantly reduced survival. In O. cornuta, C. mellificae numbers increased 2-3.6 fold within cages and significantly reduced survival of males, but not females. The proportion of infected hosts increased in O. cornuta cages with faeces, but not in honeybee cages without faeces, suggesting faecal - oral transmission. The data show that O. cornuta is a host of C. mellificae and suggest that males are more susceptible. The higher mortality of infected honeybees proposes a mechanism for correlations between C. mellificae infections and colony mortalities.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

284 since deposited on 31 Mar 2020
37 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item