Thursday, October 7, 2010

Viruses and Fungi Combination Linked to CCD

Jerry Bromenshenk is my new hero for the moment. A New York Times article today talked about the findings that a new study has found a link between a virus and fungi combination that is causing CCD. The article also mentions his using of honey bees to help detect land mines. Which shockingly enough has evidence to back it up. Read here! Detecting explosives with honey bees aside, here is the abstract to the scientific study linking viruses and fungi to CCD that the article is based on. 

Abstract 

Background

In 2010 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), again devastated honey bee colonies in the USA, indicating that the problem is neither diminishing nor has it been resolved. Many CCD investigations, using sensitive genome-based methods, have found small RNA bee viruses and the microsporidia, Nosema apis and N. ceranae in healthy and collapsing colonies alike with no single pathogen firmly linked to honey bee losses.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We used Mass spectrometry-based proteomics (MSP) to identify and quantify thousands of proteins from healthy and collapsing bee colonies. MSP revealed two unreported RNA viruses in North American honey bees, Varroa destructor-1 virus and Kakugo virus, and identified an invertebrate iridescent virus (IIV) (Iridoviridae) associated with CCD colonies. Prevalence of IIV significantly discriminated among strong, failing, and collapsed colonies. In addition, bees in failing colonies contained not only IIV, but also Nosema. Co-occurrence of these microbes consistently marked CCD in (1) bees from commercial apiaries sampled across the U.S. in 2006–2007, (2) bees sequentially sampled as the disorder progressed in an observation hive colony in 2008, and (3) bees from a recurrence of CCD in Florida in 2009. The pathogen pairing was not observed in samples from colonies with no history of CCD, namely bees from Australia and a large, non-migratory beekeeping business in Montana. Laboratory cage trials with a strain of IIV type 6 and Nosema ceranae confirmed that co-infection with these two pathogens was more lethal to bees than either pathogen alone.

Conclusions/Significance

These findings implicate co-infection by IIV and Nosema with honey bee colony decline, giving credence to older research pointing to IIV, interacting with Nosema and mites, as probable cause of bee losses in the USA, Europe, and Asia. We next need to characterize the IIV and Nosema that we detected and develop management practices to reduce honey bee losses.


So basically the viruses got on their cell phones and called the fungi, and were all like, "Yo, I'm inside a Bee! Why don't you come join me?" And the scientists (the stupid ones anyhow) were all like ... Cell Phones cause CCD!


Granted I had my own little theory, or at least I sided with the people saying it was neonicotinoid sprayed crops that sweat out the chemical in their sap. That has proven incorrect but at least it was more plausible a theory than putting a cell phone in a bee hive and calling them up.

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Iridovirus and Microsporidian Linked to Honey Bee Colony Decline