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bioRxiv · 10.1101/621946

Reproductive capacity of Varroa destructor in four different honey bee subspecies

Odemer, R.
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Abstract

Varroa tolerance as a consequence of host immunity may contribute substantially to reduce worldwide colony declines. Therefore, special breeding programs were established and varroa surviving populations investigated to understand mechanisms behind this adaptation. Here we studied the reproductive capacity in the three most common subspecies of the European honey bee (Carnica, Mellifera, Ligustica) and the F2 generation of a varroa surviving population, to identify if managed host populations possibly have adapted over time already. Both, singly infested drone and worker brood were assessed to determine fertility and fecundity of varroa foundresses in their respective group. We found neither parameter to be significantly different within the four subspecies, demonstrating that no adaptations have occurred in terms of the reproductive success of Varroa destructor. In all groups mother mites reproduce equally successful and are potentially able to cause detrimental damage to their host when not being treated sufficiently. The data further suggests that a population once varroa tolerant does not necessarily inherit this trait to following generations after the F1, which could be of particular interest when selecting populations for resistance breeding. Reasons and consequences are discussed.\n\nHIGHLIGHTSO_LIVarroa reproduction has been investigated in four different honey bee subspecies\nC_LIO_LINo differences could be observed, neither in drone nor in worker brood\nC_LIO_LIIn managed bee populations, host immunity against V. destructor has not been established\nC_LI\n\nGRAPHICAL ABSTRACT\n\nO_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=94 SRC=\"FIGDIR/small/621946v1_ufig1.gif\" ALT=\"Figure 1\">\nView larger version (20K):\norg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1ed4172org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@163a875org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1c8b5bborg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@134152_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG Illustrations after Gullan & Cranston 2014\n\nC_FIG

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Odemer, R.. 2019-04-29. Reproductive capacity of Varroa destructor in four different honey bee subspecies. https://doi.org/10.1101/621946

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