title: Specific Cues Associated With Honey Bee Social Defence against Varroa destructor Infested Brood.
abstract: Social immunity forms an essential part of the defence repertoire of social insects. In response to infestation by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and its associated viruses, honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) have developed a specific behaviour (varroa-sensitive hygiene, or VSH) that helps protect the colony from this parasite. Brood cells heavily infested with mites are uncapped, the brood killed, and the cell contents removed. For this extreme sacrifice to be beneficial to the colony, the targeting of parasitized brood for removal must be accurate and selective. Here we show that varroa-infested brood produce uniquely identifiable cues that could be used by VSH-performing bees to identify with high specificity which brood cells to sacrifice. This selective elimination of mite-infested brood is a disease resistance strategy analogous to programmed cell death, where young bees likely to be highly dysfunctional as adults are sacrificed for the greater good of the colony.
authors.affiliation: INRA, UR 406 Abeilles et Environnement, 84914 Avignon, France.|Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Fanny
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mondet
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Seo Hyun
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 750-07 Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Joachim R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: de Miranda
authors.affiliation: INRA, UR 406 Abeilles et Environnement, 84914 Avignon, France.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beslay
authors.affiliation: INRA, UR 406 Abeilles et Environnement, 84914 Avignon, France.
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Le Conte
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Alison R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Mercer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000469:parasitology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000821:virology; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D060467:Disease Resistance / Q000502:physiology*; D006920:Hygiene; D057077:Varroidae / Q000472:pathogenicity / Q000821:virology