Exposure to nectar‐realistic sugar concentrations negatively impacts the ability of the trypanosome parasite (<i>Crithidia bombi</i>) to infect its bumblebee host

Folly, Arran J.; Barton‐Navarro, Marta; Brown, Mark J. F.

doi:10.1111/een.12901

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Inoculum was diluted in 4 ml of 50% w/w sucrose solution for each of the three sub-colonies to drink from. The number of C. bombi cells provided corresponded to the number of individuals in each sub-colony multiplied by 10,000, for an average dose of 10,000 C. bombi cells per bee 53 , 79 – 81 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No effect of dual exposure to sulfoxaflor and a trypanosome parasite on bumblebee olfactory learning

Vaughan

Straw

Linguadoca

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Bees are important pollinators in wild and agricultural ecosystems, and understanding the factors driving their global declines is key to maintaining these pollination services. Learning, which has been a focus of previous ecotoxicological studies in bees, may play a key role in driving colony fitness. Here we move beyond the standard single-stressor approach to ask how multiple stressors, an agrochemical (sulfoxaflor, a relatively new insecticide) and a parasite (Crithidia bombi, a prevalent gut parasite of bumblebees), impact learning in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. We developed a modified version of the classic proboscis extension reflex assay to assess the combined effects of acute oral sulfoxaflor exposure and infection by C. bombi on olfactory learning of bumblebee workers. We found no evidence that either sulfoxaflor, C. bombi, or their combination had any significant effect on bumblebee olfactory learning, despite their known negative impacts on other aspects of bumblebee health. This suggests that losses in cognitive ability, as measured here, are unlikely to explain the impacts of sulfoxaflor and its interactions with other stressors on bumblebees. Our novel methodology provides a model system within which to test interactive effects of other key stressors on bee health.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No effect of dual exposure to sulfoxaflor and a trypanosome parasite on bumblebee olfactory learning

Vaughan

Straw

Linguadoca

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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“…Bees, even generalist species, do not forage randomly on all available plant species but rather display a selective foraging behaviour, favouring floral resources that meet their nutritional and physiological requirements [12]. Actually, feeding on suitable resource may help bees face environmental stressors such as heat stress [13], pesticide exposure [14] but also parasite infection [15,16]. Indeed, wild bees are challenged with a vast range of parasites, parasitoids and pathogens including metazoans, protozoans, bacteria and viruses [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Poison or Potion: Effects of Sunflower Phenolamides on Bumble Bees and Their Gut Parasite

Gekière

Semay

Gérard

et al. 2022

Biology

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Specific floral resources may help bees to face environmental challenges such as parasite infection, as recently shown for sunflower pollen. Whereas this pollen diet is known to be unsuitable for the larval development of bumble bees, it has been shown to reduce the load of a trypanosomatid parasite (Crithidia bombi) in the bumble bee gut. Recent studies suggested it could be due to phenolamides, a group of compounds commonly found in flowering plants. We, therefore, decided to assess separately the impacts of sunflower pollen and its phenolamides on a bumble bee and its gut parasite. We fed Crithidia-infected and -uninfected microcolonies of Bombus terrestris either with a diet of willow pollen (control), a diet of sunflower pollen (natural diet) or a diet of willow pollen supplemented with sunflower phenolamides (supplemented diet). We measured several parameters at both microcolony (i.e., food collection, parasite load, brood development and stress responses) and individual (i.e., fat body content and phenotypic variation) levels. As expected, the natural diet had detrimental effects on bumble bees but surprisingly, we did not observe any reduction in parasite load, probably because of bee species-specific outcomes. The supplemented diet also induced detrimental effects but by contrast to our a priori hypothesis, it led to an increase in parasite load in infected microcolonies. We hypothesised that it could be due to physiological distress or gut microbiota alteration induced by phenolamide bioactivities. We further challenged the definition of medicinal effects and questioned the way to assess them in controlled conditions, underlining the necessity to clearly define the experimental framework in this research field.

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“…Anthony et al ., 2015; Giacomini et al ., 2018; Aguirre et al ., 2020; Fowler et al ., 2022), whereas, studies that use the faecal sampling method often use B. terrestris as a host (e.g. Schmid-Hempel et al ., 1999; Logan et al ., 2005; Yourth and Schmid-Hempel, 2006; Folly et al ., 2020) (see Table S2). This confounding use of sampling method and host species makes cross-species comparison of infection estimates challenging.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods matter: the influence of method on infection estimates of the bumblebee parasite Crithidia bombi

Wolmuth-Gordon,

Sharmin,

Brown

2023

Parasitology

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The bumblebee gut parasite, Crithidia bombi, is widespread and prevalent in the field. Its interaction with Bombus spp. is a well-established epidemiological model. It is spread faecal-orally between colonies via the shared use of flowers when foraging. Accurately measuring the level of infection in bumblebees is important for assessing its distribution in the field, and also when conducting epidemiological experiments. Studies generally use 1 of 2 methods for measuring infection. One approach measures infection in faeces whereas the other method measures infection in guts. We tested whether the method of measuring infection affected the estimation of infection. Bumblebees were inoculated with a standardized inoculum and infection was measured 1 week later using either the faecal or gut method. We found that when the gut method was used to measure infection intensity estimates were significantly different to and approximately double those from the faecal method. These results have implications for the interpretation of previous study results and for the planning of future studies. Given the importance of bumblebees as pollinators, the impact of C. bombi on bumblebee health, and its use as an epidemiological model, we call on researchers to move towards consistent quantification of infections to enable future comparisons and meta-analyses of studies.

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Exposure to nectar‐realistic sugar concentrations negatively impacts the ability of the trypanosome parasite (Crithidia bombi) to infect its bumblebee host

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

No effect of dual exposure to sulfoxaflor and a trypanosome parasite on bumblebee olfactory learning

No effect of dual exposure to sulfoxaflor and a trypanosome parasite on bumblebee olfactory learning

Poison or Potion: Effects of Sunflower Phenolamides on Bumble Bees and Their Gut Parasite

Methods matter: the influence of method on infection estimates of the bumblebee parasite Crithidia bombi

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