Flowers as viral hot spots: Honey bees (Apis mellifera) unevenly deposit viruses across plant species.

ABSTRACT: RNA viruses, once considered specific to honey bees, are suspected of spilling over from managed bees into wild pollinators; however, transmission routes are largely unknown. A widely accepted yet untested hypothesis states that flowers serve as bridges in the transmission of viruses between bees. Here, using a series of controlled experiments with captive bee colonies, we examined the role of flowers in bee virus transmission. We first examined if honey bees deposit viruses on flowers and whether bumble bees become infected after visiting contaminated flowers. We then examined whether plant species differ in their propensity to harbor viruses and if bee visitation rates increase the likelihood of virus deposition on flowers. Our experiment demonstrated, for the first time, that honey bees

SUBMITTER: Alger SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6750573 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature