Bee Colony Collapse Associated With Viral, Fungal Infection, Biologist Says
ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2010) — The sudden death of bee colonies since late 2006 across North America has stumped scientists. But today, researchers may have a greater understanding of the mysterious colony collapse disorder, said a Texas Tech University biologist.
New research is providing a greater understanding of the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has caused the sudden death of bee colonies. (Credit: iStockphoto/Irina Tischenko)
Shan Bilimoria, a professor and molecular virologist, said the bees may be taking a one-two punch from both an insect virus and a fungus, which may be causing bees to die off by the billions.
Bilimoria is part of a team of researchers searching for the cause of the collapse. Led by research professor Jerry Bromenshenk from the University of Montana in Missoula, the group also includes virologists and chemists from the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center and the Instituto de Ecologica AC in Mexico.
Their study appears in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science.
"At this stage, the study is showing an association of death rates of the bees with the virus and fungus present," Bilimoria said. "Our contribution to this study confirms association. But even that doesn't prove cause and effect. Not just yet."
The mysterious colony deaths have caused major concern with scientists since much of agriculture depends on bees to pollinate crops.
To discover what might be attacking bee colonies, the team ground up dead bees that had succumbed to colony collapse disorder. Using analytical equipment, researchers discovered through spectroscopic analysis evidence of a moth virus called insect iridescent virus (IIV) 6 and a fungal parasite called Nosema.
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Iridovirus and Microsporidian Linked to Honey Bee Colony Decline
Jerry J. Bromenshenk1,7*, Colin B. Henderson2,7, Charles H. Wick3, Michael F. Stanford3, Alan W. Zulich3, Rabih E. Jabbour4, Samir V. Deshpande5,13, Patrick E. McCubbin6,Robert A. Seccomb7, Phillip M. Welch7, Trevor Williams8,David R. Firth9, Evan Skowronski3, Margaret M. Lehmann10, Shan L. Bilimoria11,14,Joanna Gress12, Kevin W. Wanner12, Robert A. Cramer Jr10
1 Division of Biological Sciences, The University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, United States of America, 2 College of Technology, The University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, United States of America, 3 US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood Area, Maryland, United States of America, 4Science Applications International Corporation, Abingdon, Maryland, United States of America, 5 Science Technology Corporation, Edgewood, Maryland, United States of America, 6 OptiMetrics, Inc., Abingdon, Maryland, United States of America, 7 Bee Alert Technology, Inc., Missoula, Montana, United States of America, 8 Instituto de Ecologia AC, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, 9 Department of Information Systems and Technology, The University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, United States of America, 10 Department of Veterinary Molecular Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America, 11 Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America, 12 Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, United States of America, 13 Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Towson University, Towson, Maryland, United States of America, 14 Center for Biotechnology and Genomics, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America
Abstract
Background
In 2010 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), again devastated honey bee colonies in the USA, indicating that the problem is neither diminishing nor has it been resolved. Many CCD investigations, using sensitive genome-based methods, have found small RNA bee viruses and the microsporidia, Nosema apis and N. ceranae in healthy and collapsing colonies alike with no single pathogen firmly linked to honey bee losses.
Methodology/Principal Findings
We used Mass spectrometry-based proteomics (MSP) to identify and quantify thousands of proteins from healthy and collapsing bee colonies. MSP revealed two unreported RNA viruses in North American honey bees, Varroa destructor-1 virus and Kakugo virus, and identified an invertebrate iridescent virus (IIV) (Iridoviridae) associated with CCD colonies. Prevalence of IIV significantly discriminated among strong, failing, and collapsed colonies. In addition, bees in failing colonies contained not only IIV, but also Nosema. Co-occurrence of these microbes consistently marked CCD in (1) bees from commercial apiaries sampled across the U.S. in 2006–2007, (2) bees sequentially sampled as the disorder progressed in an observation hive colony in 2008, and (3) bees from a recurrence of CCD in Florida in 2009. The pathogen pairing was not observed in samples from colonies with no history of CCD, namely bees from Australia and a large, non-migratory beekeeping business in Montana. Laboratory cage trials with a strain of IIV type 6 andNosema ceranae confirmed that co-infection with these two pathogens was more lethal to bees than either pathogen alone.
Conclusions/Significance
These findings implicate co-infection by IIV and Nosema with honey bee colony decline, giving credence to older research pointing to IIV, interacting with Nosema and mites, as probable cause of bee losses in the USA, Europe, and Asia. We next need to characterize the IIV and Nosema that we detected and develop management practices to reduce honey bee losses.
Citation: Bromenshenk JJ, Henderson CB, Wick CH, Stanford MF, Zulich AW, et al. (2010) Iridovirus and Microsporidian Linked to Honey Bee Colony Decline. PLoS ONE 5(10): e13181. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013181
Editor: Walter S. Leal, University of California Davis, United States of America
Received: April 29, 2010; Accepted: August 24, 2010; Published: October 6, 2010
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
Funding: Proteomics analysis was provided by the Point Detection Branch of ECBC under the auspices of the basic science program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Sampling and analysis was supported by the National Honey Board, California Almond Board (06-POLL8-Bromenshenk, 09-POLL10-Bromenshenk), The Foundation for the Preservation of the Honey Bee, and the US Army Medical Research and Material Command (W81XWH-04-C-0013), with data processing and statistical analysis by the US Army Night Vision Laboratory (W909MY-06-C-0037). Project Apis m. is funding confirmatory inoculation studies. Work related to these studies was supported by the California Beekeepers Association and the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station in the laboratory of RAC. These companies and the other listed funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: Jerry J. Bromenshenk is CEO and a co-owner of Bee Alert Technology, Inc., Missoula, MT; a Montana Board of Regents' Approved Technology transfer company affiliated with The University of Montana. Colin Henderson is a co-owner and Research Vice President of Bee Alert, and Robert Seccomb is a co-owner and Chief Financial Officer of this company. Rabbih E. Jabbour is employed by Science Applications International Corporation, Abingdon, MD; Samir V. Deshpande is employed by Science Technology Corporation, Edgewood, MD; and Patrick E. McCubbin is employed by OptiMetrics, Inc., Abingdon, MD. These latter three companies provide contract research personnel to the US Army. For all four companies, financial support was in the form of salaries for contracted research. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in our guide for authors.
* E-mail: beeresearch@aol.com
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