Community Dynamics in Structure and Function of Honey Bee Gut Bacteria in Response to Winter Dietary Shift

Chenyi, Li; Tang, Min; Li, Xingan; Zhou, Xin

doi:10.1128/mbio.01131-22

Cited by 27 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 100 publications

(124 reference statements)

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“…Therefore, the toxic substances in B. pilosa may not be polysaccharides, and the changes in Gilliamella abundance may be caused by the change in gut microbes caused by B. pilosa. Bartonella is more abundant in the gut microbiome of winter honeybees than in summer honeybees (Kešnerov a et al, 2020), which is related to its ability to adapt to the honeybee's winter diet because it converts metabolic waste lactic acid and ethanol into pyruvic acid, which can provide energy for itself and its host under harsh winter conditions (Li et al, 2022). Therefore, Bartonella may play a vital role in the wintering of honeybees.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gut microbiome helps honeybee (Apis mellifera) resist the stress of toxic nectar plant (Bidens pilosa) exposure: Evidence for survival and immunity

Tang

Wang

et al. 2023

Environmental Microbiology

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Honeybee (Apis mellifera) ingestion of toxic nectar plants can threaten their health and survival. However, little is known about how to help honeybees mitigate the effects of toxic nectar plant poisoning. We exposed honeybees to different concentrations of Bidens pilosa flower extracts and found that B. pilosa exposure significantly reduced honeybee survival in a dose‐dependent manner. By measuring changes in detoxification and antioxidant enzymes and the gut microbiome, we found that superoxide dismutase, glutathione‐S‐transferase and carboxylesterase activities were significantly activated with increasing concentrations of B. pilosa and that different concentrations of B. pilosa exposure changed the structure of the honeybee gut microbiome, causing a significant reduction in the abundance of Bartonella (p < 0.001) and an increase in Lactobacillus. Importantly, by using Germ‐Free bees, we found that colonization by the gut microbes Bartonella apis and Apilactobacillus kunkeei (original classification as Lactobacillus kunkeei) significantly increased the resistance of honeybees to B. pilosa and significantly upregulated bee‐associated immune genes. These results suggest that honeybee detoxification systems possess a level of resistance to the toxic nectar plant B. pilosa and that the gut microbes B. apis and A. kunkeei may augment resistance to B. pilosa stress by improving host immunity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gut microbiome helps honeybee (Apis mellifera) resist the stress of toxic nectar plant (Bidens pilosa) exposure: Evidence for survival and immunity

Tang

Wang

et al. 2023

Environmental Microbiology

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“…It is possible that the time of sample collection had an impact, as B. apis is more common during the winter season. This seasonal turnover is likely driven by changes in bee diet, with B. apis increasing in abundance when pollen consumption lowers ( Li et al, 2022 ). For Bombus spp., we found three Bombiscardovia ASVs, but none for Schmidhempelia .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Honey bees and bumble bees occupying the same landscape have distinct gut microbiomes and amplicon sequence variant-level responses to infections

Amiri,

M. Keady,

Lim

2023

PeerJ

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The gut microbiome of bees is vital for the health of their hosts. Given the ecosystem functions performed by bees, and the declines faced by many species, it is important to improve our understanding of the amount of natural variation in the gut microbiome, the level of sharing of bacteria among co-occurring species (including between native and non-native species), and how gut communities respond to infections. We conducted 16S rRNA metabarcoding to discern the level of microbiome similarity between honey bees (Apis mellifera, N = 49) and bumble bees (Bombus spp., N = 66) in a suburban-rural landscape. We identified a total of 233 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) and found simple gut microbiomes dominated by bacterial taxa belonging to Gilliamella, Snodgrassella, and Lactobacillus. The average number of ASVs per species ranged from 4.00–15.00 (8.79 ± 3.84, mean ± SD). Amplicon sequence variant of one bacterial species, G. apicola (ASV 1), was widely shared across honey bees and bumble bees. However, we detected another ASV of G. apicola that was either exclusive to honey bees, or represented an intra-genomic 16S rRNA haplotype variant in honey bees. Other than ASV 1, honey bees and bumble bees rarely share gut bacteria, even ones likely derived from outside environments (e.g., Rhizobium spp., Fructobacillus spp.). Honey bee bacterial microbiomes exhibited higher alpha diversity but lower beta and gamma diversities than those of bumble bees, likely a result of the former possessing larger, perennial hives. Finally, we identified pathogenic or symbiotic bacteria (G. apicola, Acinetobacter sp. and Pluralibacter sp.) that associate with Trypanosome and/or Vairimorpha infections in bees. Such insights help to determine bees’ susceptibility to infections should gut microbiomes become disrupted by chemical pollutants and contribute to our understanding of what constitutes a state of dysbiosis.

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“…Previous shotgun metagenomics studies have linked variation in species-and strain-level diversity in the gut microbiota to host traits, such as age, colony origin, or genotype, but not to behavioral state [22,35,[47][48][49]. Some of these studies analyzed individual bees while others focused on pooled gut samples.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Turnover of strain-level diversity modulates functional traits in the honeybee gut microbiome between nurses and foragers

Baud

Ellegaard

Engel

2022

Preprint

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Strain-level diversity is widespread among bacterial species and can expand the functional potential of natural microbial communities. However, to what extent communities shift in strain composition in response to environmental changes has mostly remained elusive. Here, we used shotgun metagenomics to compare the gut microbiota of two behavioral states of Western honeybees, larvae-feeding nurses and pollen foragers. While their gut microbiota is composed of the same bacterial species, we detected consistent changes in strain-level composition between nurses and foragers. Single nucleotide variant profiles of predominant bacterial species clustered by behavioral state rather than by colony or sampling location. Moreover, we identified strain-specific gene content related to nutrient utilization, vitamin biosynthesis, and cell-cell interactions specifically associated with the two behavioral states. Our findings show that strain-level diversity in host-associated communities can turnover in response to environmental changes modulating functional traits of communities and highlighting that strains are ecologically relevant units.

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Community Dynamics in Structure and Function of Honey Bee Gut Bacteria in Response to Winter Dietary Shift

Cited by 27 publications

References 100 publications

Gut microbiome helps honeybee (Apis mellifera) resist the stress of toxic nectar plant (Bidens pilosa) exposure: Evidence for survival and immunity

Gut microbiome helps honeybee (Apis mellifera) resist the stress of toxic nectar plant (Bidens pilosa) exposure: Evidence for survival and immunity

Honey bees and bumble bees occupying the same landscape have distinct gut microbiomes and amplicon sequence variant-level responses to infections

Turnover of strain-level diversity modulates functional traits in the honeybee gut microbiome between nurses and foragers

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