Natural biocide disrupts nestmate recognition in honeybees
Natural biocide disrupts nestmate recognition in honeybees
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DOI：
10.1038/s41598-019-38963-3
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发表时间：
2019-02-28
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Cervo, Rita
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Cappa, Federico;Petrocelli, Iacopo;Cervo, Rita
蜂群受到许多压力源的威胁，生物和非生物因素强烈影响它们的生存。最近，化学杀虫剂引起了人们极大的关注，包括其在亚致死剂量下对蜜蜂行为和蜂群成功的影响;而主要用于农业的天然杀生物剂（如昆虫病原真菌）的潜在副作用只受到很少的关注。在这里，我们报告的影响，真菌球孢白僵菌对蜜蜂的巢识别能力，一个重要的功能，在殖民地的完整性的基础上。我们进行了两个行为测定记录蜜蜂警卫对觅食（巢或非巢）无论是暴露于B的反应。在蜂箱入口处出现的白僵菌或未暴露的蜜蜂，以及暴露于真菌与未暴露的蜜蜂的表皮碳氢化合物（CHCs）的GC-MS分析。我们的研究结果表明，暴露的蜜蜂改变了表皮碳氢化合物，更容易被接受到外国殖民地比对照。由于CHC是群居昆虫的主要识别线索，其组成的变化似乎会影响殖民地水平上的巢友识别能力。因此，接受化学上无法识别的真菌暴露觅食可能有利于觅食漂移和疾病传播的殖民地。
Honeybee colonies are under the threat of many stressors, biotic and abiotic factors that strongly affect their survival. Recently, great attention has been directed at chemical pesticides, including their effects at sub-lethal doses on bee behaviour and colony success; whereas the potential side effects of natural biocides largely used in agriculture, such as entomopathogenic fungi, have received only marginal attention. Here, we report the impact of the fungus Beauveria bassiana on honeybee nestmate recognition ability, a crucial feature at the basis of colony integrity. We performed both behavioural assays by recording bee guards' response towards foragers (nestmate or non-nestmate) either exposed to B. bassiana or unexposed presented at the hive entrance, and GC-MS analyses of the cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) of fungus-exposed versus unexposed bees. Our results demonstrated that exposed bees have altered cuticular hydrocarbons and are more easily accepted into foreign colonies than controls. Since CHCs are the main recognition cues in social insects, changes in their composition appear to affect nestmate recognition ability at the colony level. The acceptance of chemically unrecognizable fungus-exposed foragers could therefore favour forager drift and disease spread across colonies.