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Covert deformed wing virus infections have long-term deleterious effects on honeybee foraging and survival

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Several studies have suggested that covert stressors can contribute to bee colony declines. Here we provide a novel case study and show using radio-frequency identification (RFID) 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 deformed wing virus infections have strongly deleterious effects on honey bee 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 US. Overall, our study underlines the strong impact that covert pathogen infections can have on individual and group-level performance in bees.
Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences
ISSN: 0962-8452
Issue: 1848
Volume: 284
Publication year:2017
BOF-keylabel:yes
IOF-keylabel:yes
BOF-publication weight:3
CSS-citation score:3
Authors:International
Authors from:Higher Education
Accessibility:Open