Area Wide Monitoring of Plant and Honey Bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) Viruses in Blueberry (<i>Vaccinium corymbosum</i>) Agroecosystems Facilitated by Honey Bee Pollination.

ABSTRACT: Healthy agroecosystems are dependent on a complex web of factors and inter-species interactions. Flowers are hubs for pathogen transmission, including the horizontal or vertical transmission of plant-viruses and the horizontal transmission of bee-viruses. Pollination by the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) is critical for industrial fruit production, but bees can also vector viruses and other pathogens between individuals. Here, we utilized commercial honey bee pollination services in blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) farms for a metagenomics-based bee and plant virus monitoring system. Following RNA sequencing, viruses were identified by mapping reads to a reference sequence database through the bioinformatics portal Virtool. In total, 29 unique plant viral species were fo

SUBMITTER: Lee E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10220920 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature