Honeybee Exposure to Veterinary Drugs: How Is the Gut Microbiota Affected?

ABSTRACT: Several studies have outlined that a balanced gut microbiota offers metabolic and protective functions supporting honeybee health and performance. The present work contributes to increasing knowledge on the impact on the honeybee gut microbiota of the three most common veterinary drugs (oxytetracycline, sulfonamides, and tylosin). The study was designed with a semi-field approach in micro-hives containing about 500 honeybees. Micro-hives were located in an incubator during the day and moved outdoors in the late afternoon, considering the restrictions on the use of antibiotics in the open field but allowing a certain freedom to honeybees; 6 replicates were considered for each treatment. The absolute abundance of the major gut microbial taxa in newly eclosed individuals was studied with qPCR

SUBMITTER: Baffoni L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8552759 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature