Identification of fungi isolated from commercial bumblebee colonies
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Fungi can have important beneficial and detrimental effects on animals, yet our understanding of the diversity and function of most bee-associated fungi is poor. Over 2 million bumblebee colonies are traded globally every year, but the presence and transport of viable fungi within them is unknown. Here, we explored whether any culturable fungi could be isolated from commercial bumblebee nests. We collected samples of various substrates from within 14 bumblebee colonies, including the honey, honey cup wall, egg cup wall, and frass then placed them on agar and recorded any growth. Fungal morphotypes were then subcultured and their ITS region sequenced for identification. Overall, we cultured 11 fungal species from the various nest substrates. These included both pathogenic and non-pathogenic fungi, such as Aspergillus sp., Penicillium sp., and Candida sp. Our results provide the first insights into the diversity of viable fungal communities in commercial bumblebee nests. Further research is needed to determine if these fungi are unique to commercial colonies or prevalent in wild bumblebee nests, and crucially to determine the ecological and evolutionary implications of these fungi in host colonies.
Date Issued
2024
Date Acceptance
2023-12-04
Citation
PeerJ, 2024, 12
ISSN
2167-8359
Publisher
PeerJ Inc.
Journal / Book Title
PeerJ
Volume
12
Copyright Statement
© 2024 Chow et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38313023
Subjects
Agar
Animals
Aspergillus
Bees
Penicillium
Aspergillus
Bombus
Candida
Fungus
Microbe
Monascus
Penicillium
Pollinator
Spillover
Zygosaccharomyces
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
e16713
Date Publish Online
2024-01-30