Superinfection exclusion and the long-term survival of honey bees in Varroa-infested colonies

Mordecai, G. J., Brettell, L. E., Martin, S. J., Dixon, D., Jones, I. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7738-2516 and Schroeder, D. C. (2016) Superinfection exclusion and the long-term survival of honey bees in Varroa-infested colonies. ISME Journal, 10 (5). pp. 1182-1191. ISSN 1751-7370 doi: 10.1038/ismej.2015.186

Abstract/Summary

Over the past 50 years, many millions of European honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies have died as the ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor, has spread around the world. Subsequent studies have indicated that the mite's association with a group of RNA viral pathogens (Deformed Wing Virus, DWV) correlates with colony death. Here, we propose a phenomenon known as superinfection exclusion that provides an explanation of how certain A. mellifera populations have survived, despite Varroa infestation and high DWV loads. Next-generation sequencing has shown that a non-lethal DWV variant 'type B' has become established in these colonies and that the lethal 'type A' DWV variant fails to persist in the bee population. We propose that this novel stable host-pathogen relationship prevents the accumulation of lethal variants, suggesting that this interaction could be exploited for the development of an effective treatment that minimises colony losses in the future.The ISME Journal advance online publication, 27 October 2015; doi:10.1038/ismej.2015.186.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/45709
Identification Number/DOI	10.1038/ismej.2015.186
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Biomedical Sciences
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item