Parasitism in the social bee Apis mellifera quantifying costs and benefits of behavioral resistance to Varroa destructor mites

The case of a host-parasite relationshipmay provide a good model to evaluate the costs and benefits of some behaviors, an area in which field data a currently lacking. European (EHB) and Africanized (AHB) honey bees are two Apis mellifera subspecies that coexist in Mexico, the former highly compatible with Varroa destructor, the latter less compatible. Here we examine two mechanisms that could explain the low compatibility between AHB and V. destructor in Mexico: (1) grooming behavior appeared significantly more intensive in AHB colonies, but was nevertheless ineffective; (2) EHB removed 8.03% of the infested brood, while AHB removed 32.46%, especially between 5 and 7 days post-capping. Though the cost of removing infested broodwas not different between subspecies, the result, in terms of the amount of removed infested brood,was significantly higher for AHB. For both bees, there is thus a real cost, since removing a pupa results in a lower number of adult bees. We discuss the possibility that the removal of infested brood corresponds with a threshold above which the cost of removal becomes greater than the benefit.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Vandame, Rémy Doctor autor 3181, Morand, Serge autor, Colin, Marc E. autor, Belzunces, Luc P. autor
Format:	Texto biblioteca
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Abeja melífera, Varroa jacobsoni, Parasitismo, Conducta animal,
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