The effect of Israeli acute paralysis virus infection on honey bee brood care behavior.

ABSTRACT: To protect themselves from communicable diseases, social insects utilize social immunity-behavioral, physiological, and organizational means to combat disease transmission and severity. Within a honey bee colony, larvae are visited thousands of times by nurse bees, representing a prime environment for pathogen transmission. We investigated a potential social immune response to Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) infection in brood care, testing the hypotheses that bees will respond with behaviors that result in reduced brood care, or that infection results in elevated brood care as a virus-driven mechanism to increase transmission. We tested for group-level effects by comparing three different social environments in which 0%, 50%, or 100% of nurse bees were experimentally infected with IA

SUBMITTER: Taylor LN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10781695 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature