Regional Patterns and Climatic Predictors of Viruses in Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Colonies over Time

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2025 Jan 2

PMID 39747229

Authors

Alison McAfee

Niloofar Alavi-Shoushtari

Renata Labuschagne

Lan Tran

Julia Common

Heather Higo

Stephen F Pernal

Pierre Giovenazzo

Shelley E Hoover

Ernesto Guzman-Novoa

Robert W Currie

Patricia Wolf Veiga

Sarah K French

Ida M Conflitti

Mateus Pepinelli

Daniel Borges

Elizabeth M Walsh

Christine A Bishop

Amro Zayed

Jason Duffe

M Marta Guarna

Leonard J Foster

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Honey bee viruses are serious pathogens that can cause poor colony health and productivity. We analyzed a multi-year longitudinal dataset of abundances of nine honey bee viruses (deformed wing virus A, deformed wing virus B, black queen cell virus, sacbrood virus, Lake Sinai virus, Kashmir bee virus, acute bee paralysis virus, chronic bee paralysis virus, and Israeli acute paralysis virus) in colonies located across Canada to describe broad trends in virus intensity and occurrence among regions and years. We also tested climatic variables (temperature, wind speed, and precipitation) as predictors in an effort to understand possible drivers underlying seasonal patterns in viral prevalence. Temperature was a significant positive predictor of the total number of viruses per sample, which was highest in British Columbia (mean = 5.0). Lake Sinai virus (LSV) was the most prevalent overall (at 89%) and had the highest infection intensity, at an average of 3.9 × 10 copies per bee. Acute bee paralysis virus was the least prevalent virus (at 4.7%) and had the lowest infection intensity (1.9 × 10 copies per bee). Surprisingly, including Varroa abundance as a covariate did not significantly improve model fit for any virus. All viruses, except Kashmir bee virus, varied by region, and one or more climatic variables were significant predictors for six of the nine viruses. Although climatic effects were often inconsistent among individual viruses, we show that climatic variables can be better predictors of virus intensity and occurrence than Varroa mite abundance, at least when infestation rates are low.

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