Impact of Nutritional Stress on Honeybee Gut Microbiota, Immunity, and Nosema ceranae Infection

Castelli, Loreley; Branchiccela, Belén; Garrido, Melisa Paula; Invernizzi, Ciro; Porrini, Martín Pablo; Romero, Héctor; Santos, Estela; Zunino, Pablo; Antúnez, Karina

doi:10.1007/s00248-020-01538-1

Cited by 80 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 84 publications

(111 reference statements)

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“…can be ascribed to the capability of these bacteria of using plant secondary metabolites as a source of carbon and energy [ 65 ]. Interestingly, Castelli et al [ 53 , 66 ] found a positive correlation between B. apis abundance and the feeding of Eucaliptus grandis pollen, containing a high amount of essential oils, among which is thymol [ 53 , 67 ]. Bombilactobacillus spp.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Honeybees Exposure to Natural Feed Additives: How Is the Gut Microbiota Affected?

et al. 2021

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The role of a balanced gut microbiota to maintain health and prevent diseases is largely established in humans and livestock. Conversely, in honeybees, studies on gut microbiota perturbations by external factors have started only recently. Natural methods alternative to chemical products to preserve honeybee health have been proposed, but their effect on the gut microbiota has not been examined in detail. This study aims to investigate the effect of the administration of a bacterial mixture of bifidobacteria and Lactobacillaceae and a commercial product HiveAliveTM on honeybee gut microbiota. The study was developed in 18 hives of about 2500 bees, with six replicates for each experimental condition for a total of three experimental groups. The absolute abundance of main microbial taxa was studied using qPCR and NGS. The results showed that the majority of the administered strains were detected in the gut. On the whole, great perturbations upon the administration of the bacterial mixture and the plant-based commercial product were not observed in the gut microbiota. Significant variations with respect to the untreated control were only observed for Snodgrassella sp. for the bacterial mixture, Bartonella sp. in HiveAliveTM and Bombilactobacillus sp. for both. Therefore, the studied approaches are respectful of the honeybee microbiota composition, conceivably without compromising the bee nutritional, social and ecological functions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Honeybees Exposure to Natural Feed Additives: How Is the Gut Microbiota Affected?

et al. 2021

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“…In addition to these economic and social pressures, all pollinators are subject to various environmental stressors. Indeed, landscape alterations, caused by habitat loss and urbanisation, have dramatically reduced the abundance and diversity of food resources, leading to honeybee nutritional stress and the consequent weakening of their immune system, disruption of their gut microbiota, and increases in their susceptibility to viral and Nosema infections (11)(12)(13)(14). Moreover, beehives providing pollination services are often placed in fields where they are exposed to varying degrees of herbicide and insecticide use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bee foraging preferences, microbiota and pathogens revealed by direct shotgun metagenomics of honey

Galanis

Vardakas

Reczko

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Honeybees (Apis mellifera) continue to succumb to human and environmental pressures despite their crucial role in providing essential ecosystem services. Owing to their foraging and honey production activities, honeybees form complex relationships with species across all domains, such as plants, viruses, bacteria (symbiotic and pathogenic), and other hive pests, making honey a valuable biomonitoring tool for assessing their ecological niche. Thus, the application of honey shotgun metagenomics (SM) has paved the way for a detailed description of the species honeybees interact with, in order to better assess the multiple factors governing their health. Here, we describe the implementation of optimized honey DNA extraction methodology coupled to direct shotgun metagenomics (Direct-SM) analysis, and to a computationally optimised and validated pipeline for taxonomic classification of species detected in honey. By comparing honey collected across 3 harvesting seasons in a stable apiary, we show that Direct-SM can describe the variability of sampled plant species, revealing honeybee behavioural adaptation. In addition, we reveal that Direct-SM can non-invasively capture the diversity of species comprising the core and non-core bacterial communities of the gut microbiome. Finally, we show that this methodology is applicable for the monitoring of pathogens and particularly for the biomonitoring varroa infestation. These results suggest that Direct-SM can accurately and comprehensively describe honeybee ecological niches and can be deployed to assess bee health in the field.

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“…[25]. The associations of bi dobacteria and G. apicola were recently con rmed in another independent study [26], and microsporidian infection was positively associated with Snodgrassella spp. in bumble bees as well [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Vairimorpha Ceranae Alters Honey Bee Microbiota Composition and Sustain the Survival of Adult Honey Bees

Zhang¹,

Su²,

Wang³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: Vairimorpha (Nosema) ceranae is the most common eukaryotic gut pathogen in honey bees, Apis mellifera. Infection is typically chronic but may result in mortality. Additional factors may be involved in mortality, including the honey bee gut microbiota. Previous studies of V. ceranae and gut microbiota identified positive associations between core bacteria and V. ceranae infection. These possibly synergistic or mutualistic associations are often disregarded because some core bacteria act as probiotic symbionts. Methods: To clarify the effects caused by the positive associations, we added isomaltooligosaccharide (IMO), a prebiotic also found in honey, to alter the interactions between V. ceranae and gut bacteria. Mortality and sugar consumption of the caged bees were monitored. Infection intensities and gut bacteria were examed after 12 days post inoculation, the plateau phase of infection. The gut bacteria were evaluated using both qPCR and 16S rDNA sequencing.Results: We confirmed that V. ceranae infections alone significantly enhance several core bacterial populations, including Bifidobacterium spp., Snodgrassella alvi, and Gilliamella apicola in the honey bee hindgut microbiota. Moreover, the qPCR results suggested that V. ceranae infected bees had significantly higher bacterial microbiota populations. In addition to the enhanced core bacteria, Commensalibacter and Bartonella were significantly increased in the fecal microbiome. Infected bees fed IMO had significantly higher V. ceranae spore counts but lower mortality; however, infected bees fed IMO did not have significant changes in gut bacteria populations compared to those fed only sucrose, but feeding IMO further reduced the fecal microbiome alpha-diversity. Conclusions: The microbiota alterations caused by infection were similar to the microbiota differences found between summer bees and winter bees, the latter of which have longer lifespans, and feeding IMO increased this similarity. Our results indicated that the interactions between gut bacteria and V. ceranae not only enhanced both the pathogen and bacteria populations but also sustained the host survival. This mutualistic interaction potentially enhances disease transmission and avoids social immune responses of the honey bee hosts.

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Impact of Nutritional Stress on Honeybee Gut Microbiota, Immunity, and Nosema ceranae Infection

Cited by 80 publications

References 84 publications

Honeybees Exposure to Natural Feed Additives: How Is the Gut Microbiota Affected?

Honeybees Exposure to Natural Feed Additives: How Is the Gut Microbiota Affected?

Bee foraging preferences, microbiota and pathogens revealed by direct shotgun metagenomics of honey

Vairimorpha Ceranae Alters Honey Bee Microbiota Composition and Sustain the Survival of Adult Honey Bees

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