Report on the microbiota of Melipona quadrifasciata affected by a recurrent disease

Díaz, Sebastián Pérez; Urbano, Sarah de Souza; Caesar, Lílian; Blochtein, Betina; Sattler, Aroni; Zuge, Valmir; Haag, Karen Luisa

doi:10.1016/j.jip.2016.11.012

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Together, OTUs 1, 3 and 5 (Lactobacillaceae), OTU2 (Bi dobacteriaceae) and OTU10 (Acetobacteraceae) comprised 74% of the total number of sequences (Supplementary Table 2). All nine Lactobacillaceae OTUs observed in the study are closely related to other 16S sequences previously found in the gut of M. quadrifasciata foragers, which were separated in four phylogenetic clusters named Firmicutes groups U, X, Y and Z by Díaz et al [23]. The core Lactobacillaceae belong to Groups U and X (known as Firm-5).…”

Section: A Putative Core Gut Microbiome Of M Quadrifasciata Forager Beessupporting

confidence: 79%

“…Figure 4 shows all possible pairwise correlations between the representative pollen and bacterial taxa within our study. OTU8 and OTU4 are still unclassi ed Lactobacillaceae that were named as Firmicutes Group Y in our previous study on the M. quadrifasciata microbiota [23] (Fig. 5).…”

Section: Correlations Between Pollen Diet and The Gut Microbiomementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Representative sequences from the most common OTUs within our bacterial 16S and fungal ITS2 datasets were aligned with other sequences reported for the M. quadrifasciata microbiome in previous publications [16,23]. Multiple alignments were done with MUSCLE and then used for inferring phylogenetic relationships with FastTree, both implemented in Geneious Prime v. 2021.1.1 (Biomatters), resampling the alignment sites by bootstrapping, with 1,000 iterations.…”

Section: Phylogenetic Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the most serious issues affecting meliponiculture, is disease. Melipona quadrifasciata, the second most important stingless bee kept through meliponiculture [21], and listed as endangered in Southern Brazil [22], suffers from an annual syndrome that outbreaks in March, causing high mortality rates of adult bees and eventually colony losses [23]. Our previous studies suggest that the syndrome results from increased susceptibility to pathogens such as viruses, probably caused by poor nutrition and other sub-lethal environmental factors [24,25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal changes in gut microbiota composition and pollen diet associated with colony weakness of a stingless bee.

Haag

Caesar²,

Regueira-Neto³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Compared to honeybees and bumblebees, the effect of diet on the gut microbiome of Neotropical corbiculate bees such as Melipona spp. is largely unknown. These bees have been managed for centuries, but recently an annual disease is affecting M. quadrifasciata, an endangered species kept exclusively by management in Southern Brazil. Here we report the results of a longitudinal metabarcoding study involving the period of M. quadrifasciata colony weakness, designed to monitor the gut microbiota and diet changes preceding an outbreak. We found increasing amounts of bacteria associated to the gut of forager bees two months before the first symptoms have been recorded. Simultaneously, forager bees showed decreasing body weight. The accelerated growth of gut-associated bacteria was uneven among taxa, with Bifidobacteriaceae dominating, and Lactobacillaceae decreasing in relative abundance within the bacterial community. Dominant fungi such as Candida and Starmerella also decreased in numbers, and the stingless bee obligate symbiont Zygosaccharomyces showed the lowest relative abundance during the outbreak period. Such changes were associated with pronounced diet shifts, i.e., the rise of Eucalyptus spp. pollen amount in forager bees’ guts. Furthermore, there was a negative correlation between the amount of Eucalyptus pollen in diets and the abundance of some bacterial taxa in the gut associated microbiota. We conclude that diet and subsequent interactions with the gut microbiome are key environmental components of the annual disease, and propose the use of diet supplementation as means to sustain the activity of stingless bee keeping as well as native bee pollination services.

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Section: A Putative Core Gut Microbiome Of M Quadrifasciata Forager Beessupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Correlations Between Pollen Diet and The Gut Microbiomementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Phylogenetic Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Temporal changes in gut microbiota composition and pollen diet associated with colony weakness of a stingless bee.

Haag

Caesar²,

Regueira-Neto³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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show abstract

“…Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium have been reported as the most abundant genera, and in contrast to Apini and Bombini tribes, in Meliponini, Gilliamella and Snodgrassella are not always present or abundant. Additionally, stingless bees harbor numerous and specific Acetobacter species [41][42][43][44][45][46][47].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loss and Gain of Gut Bacterial Phylotype Symbionts in Afrotropical Stingless Bee Species (Apidae: Meliponinae)

et al. 2021

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Stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) are the most diverse group of corbiculate bees and are important managed and wild pollinators distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of the globe. However, little is known about their associated beneficial microbes that play major roles in host nutrition, detoxification, growth, activation of immune responses, and protection against pathogens in their sister groups, honeybees and bumble bees. Here, we provide an initial characterization of the gut bacterial microbiota of eight stingless bee species from sub-Saharan Africa using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Our findings revealed that Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria were the dominant and conserved phyla across the eight stingless bee species. Additionally, we found significant geographical and host intra-species-specific bacterial diversity. Notably, African strains showed significant phylogenetic clustering when compared with strains from other continents, and each stingless bee species has its own microbial composition with its own dominant bacterial genus. Our results suggest host selective mechanisms maintain distinct gut communities among sympatric species and thus constitute an important resource for future studies on bee health management and host-microbe co-evolution and adaptation.

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Enemies, Dangers and Colony Defence

Grüter

2020

Fascinating Life Sciences

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Report on the microbiota of Melipona quadrifasciata affected by a recurrent disease

Cited by 22 publications

References 31 publications

Temporal changes in gut microbiota composition and pollen diet associated with colony weakness of a stingless bee.

Temporal changes in gut microbiota composition and pollen diet associated with colony weakness of a stingless bee.

Loss and Gain of Gut Bacterial Phylotype Symbionts in Afrotropical Stingless Bee Species (Apidae: Meliponinae)

Enemies, Dangers and Colony Defence

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