I-Corps: Pheromone-based tool for determining honey bee colony pest and disease resistance

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种基于信息素的工具，通过选择性繁殖和管理技术改善蜜蜂的健康。通过能够快速且廉价地识别抗病虫害的蜜蜂群体，该工具具有为养蜂人和繁育者节省成本和劳动力的潜力，因为它可能会将杀鼠剂的使用降至最低，并促进对害虫种群积累的可持续预防和监测。减少杀鼠剂的使用，提高对病虫害的抵抗力，可能会导致蜜蜂更健康，并改善作物和自然生态系统的授粉。此外，检测中使用的一种化合物最近与蚂蚁拆箱有关，这一行为类似于蜜蜂的卫生行为，这表明开发相关产品用于控制蚂蚁和白蚁有害生物物种的潜力。这个I-Corps项目基于开发一种基于信息素的分析方法，通过卫生行为预测和提高蜜蜂的病虫害和抗病能力。卫生行为是蜜蜂发现、揭帽和清除蜂群中不健康幼虫的能力，是蜜蜂社会免疫的重要机制。这种新的方法利用不健康的蜜蜂自然产生的合成信息素来诱导卫生行为。在测试中，用信息素处理一小部分幼虫，然后返回蜂群两个小时。早期的田间试验表明，一个群体对化验的卫生反应(以被操纵的细胞的百分比计算)提供了一个群体的自然抗虫性和抗病能力的衡量标准。具体地说，菌落的检测反应预测了未来的寄生虫感染水平、寄生虫清除能力和冬季存活，在这些地方，得分高的菌落蠕虫更少，除螨效果更好，更有可能在冬季存活。这项拟议的研究将利用行为、生化、育种和制造技术来优化原型的有效性、安全性和交付。该项目将降低生产成本，评估环境变量中的原型性能，并为菌落分析响应确定的抗寄生虫特性的遗传性提供概念验证。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a pheromone-based tool for improving honey bee health through selective breeding and management techniques. By enabling rapid and inexpensive identification of pest- and disease-resistant honey bee colonies, this tool has cost and labor-saving potential for beekeepers and breeders, as it is likely to minimize miticide use, and facilitate sustainable prevention and monitoring of pest population buildup. Reduced use of miticides and improved pest and disease resistance may result in healthier honey bees and improved crop and natural ecosystem pollination. In addition, one compound used in the assay was recently associated with ant unpacking, a behavior comparable to honey bee hygiene, suggesting the potential for the development of related products for use in the control of ant and termite pest species.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a pheromone-based assay to predict and improve honey bee pest and disease resistance through hygienic behavior. Hygienic behavior is the ability of honey bees to detect, uncap, and remove unhealthy brood from the colony, and is an important mechanism of honey bee social immunity. This novel assay utilizes synthetic pheromones naturally produced by unhealthy honey bees to induce hygienic behavior. In the assay, a small area of brood is treated with pheromones and returned to the colony for two hours. Early field trials suggest that a colony’s hygienic response to the assay (calculated as a percent of cells manipulated) provides a measure of the colony’s natural pest and disease resistance. Specifically, a colony’s assay response predicts future parasite infestation levels, parasite removal ability, and winter survival, where high scoring colonies have fewer mites, demonstrate better mite removal, and are more likely to survive winter. The proposed research will employ behavioral, biochemical, breeding, and manufacturing techniques to optimize prototype efficacy, safety, and delivery. The project will reduce production costs, assess prototype performance across environmental variables, and provide a proof-of-concept for heritability of parasite-resistance traits identified by colony assay response.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.