The relationship between managed bees and the prevalence of parasites in bumblebees
Author(s)
Graystock, Peter
Goulson, Dave
Hughes, William OH
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Honey bees and, more recently, bumblebees have been domesticated and are now managed commercially primarily for crop pollination, mixing with wild pollinators during foraging on shared flower resources. There is mounting evidence that managed honey bees or commercially produced bumblebees may affect the health of wild pollinators such as bumblebees by increasing competition for resources and the prevalence of parasites in wild bees. Here we screened 764 bumblebees from around five greenhouses that either used commercially produced bumblebees or did not, as well as bumblebees from 10 colonies placed at two sites either close to or far from a honey bee apiary, for the parasites Apicystis bombi, Crithidia bombi, Nosema bombi, N. ceranae, N. apis and deformed wing virus. We found that A. bombi and C. bombi were more prevalent around greenhouses using commercially produced bumblebees, while C. bombi was 18% more prevalent in bumblebees at the site near to the honey bee apiary than those at the site far from the apiary. Whilst these results are from only a limited number of sites, they support previous reports of parasite spillover from commercially produced bumblebees to wild bumblebees, and suggest that the impact of stress from competing with managed bees or the vectoring of parasites by them on parasite prevalence in wild bees needs further investigation. It appears increasingly likely that the use of managed bees comes at a cost of increased parasites in wild bumblebees, which is not only a concern for bumblebee conservation, but which may impact other pollinators as well.
Date Issued
2014-08-12
Date Acceptance
2014-07-24
Citation
PeerJ, 2014, 2, pp.1-14
ISSN
2167-8359
Publisher
PeerJ Inc.
Start Page
1
End Page
14
Journal / Book Title
PeerJ
Volume
2
Copyright Statement
© 2014 The Author(s). Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0.
License URL
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000347617300007&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Pathogen spillover
Pollinator conservation
Commercial bumblebee production
Honeybee
DEFORMED-WING-VIRUS
NOSEMA-CERANAE
APIS-MELLIFERA
HONEY-BEE
PATHOGEN SPILLOVER
BOMBUS-TERRESTRIS
GENETIC DIVERSITY
WILD POLLINATORS
COLONY COLLAPSE
HYMENOPTERA
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e522
Date Publish Online
2014-08-12