Covert deformed wing virus infections have long-term deleterious effects on honeybee foraging and survival.
Several studies have suggested that covert stressors can contribute to bee colony declines. Here we provide a novel case study and show using radiofrequency identification tracking technology that covert deformed wing virus (DWV) infections in adult honeybee workers seriously impact long-term foraging and survival under natural foraging conditions. In particular, our experiments show that adult workers injected with low doses of DWV experienced increased mortality rates, that DWV caused workers to start foraging at a premature age, and that the virus reduced the workers' total activity span as foragers. Altogether, these results demonstrate that covert DWV infections have strongly deleterious effects on honeybee foraging and survival. These results are consistent with previous studies that suggested DWV to be an important contributor to the ongoing bee declines in Europe and the USA. Overall, our study underlines the strong impact that covert pathogen infections can have on individual and group-level performance in bees.
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Laboratory of Socio-ecology and Social Evolution, Leuven, Belgium.
Kristof
K
Benaets
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Laboratory of Socio-ecology and Social Evolution, Leuven, Belgium.
Anneleen
A
Van Geystelen
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Laboratory of Socio-ecology and Social Evolution, Leuven, Belgium.
Dries
D
Cardoen
Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, UGent, Laboratory of Molecular Entomology and Bee Pathology, Gent, Belgium.
Lina
L
De Smet
Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, UGent, Laboratory of Molecular Entomology and Bee Pathology, Gent, Belgium.
Dirk C
DC
de Graaf
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Research group of Functional Genomics and Proteomics, Leuven, Belgium.
Liliane
L
Schoofs
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Laboratory of Socio-ecology and Social Evolution, Leuven, Belgium.|Laboratory of Forensic Genetics and Molecular Archaeology, UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.|Department of Imaging and Pathology, KU Leuven, Forensic Medicine, Leuven, Belgium.
Maarten H D
MH
Larmuseau
School of Environment and Life Sciences, The University of Salford, Manchester, UK.
Laura E
LE
Brettell
School of Environment and Life Sciences, The University of Salford, Manchester, UK.
Stephen J
SJ
Martin
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Laboratory of Socio-ecology and Social Evolution, Leuven, Belgium tom.wenseleers@kuleuven.be.
Tom
0000-0002-1434-861X
T
Wenseleers
D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D001516:Bees / Q000821:virology*; D007304:Insect Viruses / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D014921:Wings, Animal / Q000821:virology*
bee declines; covert pathogen infections; deformed wing virus; foraging behaviour; honeybees; radiofrequency identification tags