How is the spread of the parasitic honeybee mite Varroa destructor changing the viral landscape of Hawaii?

蜜蜂为人类提供蜂蜜，并提供重要的授粉服务。然而，最近却有大量的蜂群意外死亡。尽管其原因仍未得到解释，但科学家们认为，寄生性蜜蜂螨虫及其传播蜜蜂病毒的能力是一个主要因素。一个隐藏的问题是，瓦螨在世界范围内的传播可能永久性地改变了蜜蜂和其他昆虫赖以生存的病毒环境。在Varroa现已建立的地区，某些蜜蜂病毒病原体几乎无处不在，令人担忧的是，在几个国家的本地蜜蜂、黄蜂和大黄蜂中发现了某些病毒病原体，因此构成了更广泛的生物多样性威胁。然而，在瓦罗亚到来之前，人们对病毒的情况几乎一无所知，因为在检测病毒所需的分子工具被开发出来之前，螨虫已经在世界范围内传播。最近瓦螨在夏威夷群岛的传播提供了一个难得的机会来研究瓦螨是如何影响病毒景观、负荷和菌株毒力的。在瓦罗亚传播之前，通过收集蜂群、本地蜜蜂和黄蜂的病毒数据，我们将首次在当地和全球范围内比较瓦罗亚之前和之后的病毒模式。这将为引入新的病毒传播途径的种群动态和进化后果提供见解。虽然这些数据对于理解蜜蜂-瓦螨和病毒病原体之间的宿主-寄生虫共同进化至关重要，但它也将揭示更广泛的问题，即这种入侵性害虫如何通过潜在地改变更广泛的病毒景观来间接威胁生物多样性。

Honeybees supply man with honey and provide a vital pollination service. However, recently a large number of colonies have died unexpectedly. Although the reasons for this remain unexplained, scientists believe that the parasitic honeybee mite Varroa destructor, and its ability to transmit honeybee viruses, is a major factor. A hidden problem is that the world-wide spread of Varroa may have permanently altered the viral landscape within which honeybees and other insects now operate. In areas where Varroa is now well established, certain honeybee viral pathogens are almost ubiquitous and, worryingly, have been found in native bees, wasps and bumblebees in several countries, therefore posing a wider biodiversity threat. However, almost nothing is known about the viral landscape before Varroa arrived, since the mite had already spread world-wide before the molecular tools required to detect the viruses were developed. The very recent spreading of the Varroa mite across the Hawaiian Islands provides a rare opportunity to study how Varroa is affecting the viral landscape, load and strain virulence. By collecting viral data from honeybee colonies, native bees and wasps before the spread of Varroa will allow us for the first time to compare viral patterns pre- and post-Varroa at both local and global scales. This will provide insights into the population dynamics and evolutionary consequences of the introduction of a new viral transmission route. Although these data are vital to understand host-parasite co-evolution between the honeybee-Varroa mite and viral pathogens, it will also shed light onto the wider issue of how such invasive pests may threaten biodiversity indirectly, by potentially changing the wider viral landscape.