Origins, diversity, and adaptive evolution of DWV in the honey bees of the Azores: the impact of the invasive mite Varroa destructor.

ABSTRACT: Deformed wing virus (DWV) is a honey bee virus, whose emergence from relative obscurity is driven by the recent host-switch, adaptation, and global dispersal of the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor (a highly efficient vector of DWV) to reproduction on honey bees (Apis mellifera). Our study examines how varroa affects the continuing evolution of DWV, using the Azores archipelago, where varroa is present on only three out of the eight Islands, as a natural experimental system for comparing different evolutionary conditions and trajectories. We combined qPCR of 494 honey bee colonies sampled across the archipelago with amplicon deep sequencing to reveal how the DWV genetic landscape is altered by varroa. Two of the varroa-free Islands were also free of DWV, while a further t

SUBMITTER: Lopes AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11306321 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature