Virome Analysis Reveals Diverse and Divergent RNA Viruses in Wild Insect Pollinators in Beijing, China

Abstract

Insect pollinators provide major pollination services for wild plants and crops. Honeybee viruses can cause serious damage to honeybee colonies. However, viruses of other wild pollinating insects have yet to be fully explored. In the present study, we used RNA sequencing to investigate the viral diversity of 50 species of wild pollinating insects. A total of 3 pathogenic honeybee viruses, 8 previously reported viruses, and 26 novel viruses were identified in sequenced samples. Among these, 7 novel viruses were shown to be closely related to honeybee pathogenic viruses, and 4 were determined to have potential pathogenicity for their hosts. The viruses detected in wild insect pollinators were mainly from the order Picornavirales and the families Orthomyxoviridae, Sinhaliviridae, Rhabdoviridae, and Flaviviridae. Our study expanded the species range of known insect pollinator viruses, contributing to future efforts to protect economic honeybees and wild pollinating insects.

Virome Analysis of Normal and Growth Retardation Disease-Affected Macrobrachiumrosenbergii

“…Shi et al ( 5 ) found that numerous and divergent picorna-like viruses were ubiquitous in invertebrate species. In addition, previous virome analyses of honeybees and other insect pollinators also observed that Picornavirale s was the dominant group ( 41 – 43 ). Furthermore, 46 picorna-like virus sequences were recently identified in multiple marine invertebrate species from three different seas (the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the Yellow Sea) in China ( 44 ).…”

The Viromes of Six Ecosystem Service Provider Parasitoid Wasps

“…Another family related to mitoviruses is the Narnaviridae family, which contains nonencapsidated positive-stranded RNA viruses that range from 2.3 to 3.6 kb [87]. We found in our analysis that Ampulexvirus narnaviri clustered with Xiangshan narna-like virus, which was obtained from a mixed pool of several species of insects [88]. It was not possible to classify this species at the genera level since all of the closest species are also defined as unclassified elements within the Narnaviridae family (Figure 3B).…”

“…According to the ICTV, Orthomyxoviridae and Xinmoviridae are families of negativesense single-stranded RNA viruses that have been found in insects [81,99]. In particular, orthomyxoviruses are constituted by 6 to 8 segments and have been isolated from insect pollinators in China and Korea [88,100]. Here, we detected two putative orthomyxoviruses composed by five segments (Cotesiavirus orthomyxi and Diachasmavirus orthomyxi) that clustered together.…”

Annual (2023) taxonomic update of RNA-directed RNA polymerase-encoding negative-sense RNA viruses (realm Riboviria: kingdom Orthornavirae: phylum Negarnaviricota)

“…Genus Formivirus was expanded by one new species, Formivirus pollinis , for Xiāngshān nyami-like virus (XNyV) discovered by metagenomics in wild insect pollinators in Xiāngshān Park (香山公园), Beijing, China [ 24 ] (TaxoProp 2022.016M.A.Nyamiviridae_2nsp).…”