Sammanfattning

Honeybee colonies offer an excellent environment for microbial pathogen development. The highest virulent, colony killing, bacterial agents are Paenibacillus larvae causing American foulbrood (AFB), and European foulbrood (EFB) associated bacteria. Besides the innate immune defense, honeybees evolved behavioral defenses to combat infections. Foraging of antimicrobial plant compounds plays a key role for this social immunity behavior. Secondary plant metabolites in floral nectar are known for their antimicrobial effects. Yet, these compounds are highly plant specific, and the effects on bee health will depend on the floral origin of the honey produced. As worker bees not only feed themselves, but also the larvae and other colony members, honey is a prime candidate acting as self-medication agent in honeybee colonies to prevent or decrease infections. Here, we test eight AFB and EFB bacterial strains and the growth inhibitory activity of three honey types. Using a high-throughput cell growth assay, we show that all honeys have high growth inhibitory activity and the two monofloral honeys appeared to be strain specific. The specificity of the monofloral honeys and the strong antimicrobial potential of the polyfloral honey suggest that the diversity of honeys in the honey stores of a colony may be highly adaptive for its social immunity against the highly diverse suite of pathogens encountered in nature. This ecological diversity may therefore operate similar to the well-known effects of host genetic variance in the arms race between host and parasite.

Nyckelord

American foulbrood; antimicrobial activity; disease ecology; European foulbrood; host-parasite interaction; Paenibacillus larvae; self-medication

Publicerad i

Ecology and Evolution
2014, Volym: 4, nummer: 20, sidor: 3960-3967
Utgivare: WILEY-BLACKWELL

SLU författare

• Forsgren, Eva

  • Institutionen för ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Associerade SLU-program

AMR: Bakterier


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Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1252

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/63746