Field-Realistic Tylosin Exposure Impacts Honey Bee Microbiota and Pathogen Susceptibility, Which Is Ameliorated by Native Gut Probiotics.

ABSTRACT: Antibiotics have been applied to honey bee (Apis mellifera) hives for decades to treat Paenibacillus larvae, which causes American foulbrood disease and kills honey bee larvae. One of the few antibiotics approved in apiculture is tylosin tartrate. This study examined how a realistic hive treatment regimen of tylosin affected the gut microbiota of bees and susceptibility to a bacterial pathogen. Tylosin treatment reduced bacterial species richness and phylogenetic diversity and reduced the absolute abundances and strain diversity of the beneficial core gut bacteria Snodgrassella alvi and Bifidobacterium spp. Bees from hives treated with tylosin died more quickly after being fed a bacterial pathogen (Serratia marcescens) in the laboratory. We then tested whether a probiotic cocktail o

SUBMITTER: Powell JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8552731 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature