Assessment of intestinal parasites in the coexisting Bombus terrestris (Apidae) and Xylocopa augusti (Apidae) in central
- PDF / 984,122 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 96 Downloads / 190 Views
(2020) 93:8
Revista Chilena de Historia Natural
SHORT REPORT
Open Access
Assessment of intestinal parasites in the coexisting Bombus terrestris (Apidae) and Xylocopa augusti (Apidae) in central Chile Kiara Fernández1, Jennifer Alcaíno1, Dionisia Sepúlveda2 and Rodrigo Medel1*
Abstract Bombus terrestris is a European bumblebee extensively commercialized worldwide for crop pollination. In Chile, this species was introduced in 1997 and after confinement escape, it has spread and established in several localities of central-southern Chile and in the Argentine Patagonia. The South American carpenter bee Xylocopa augusti, in turn, has been recently reported in central Chile, and as B. terrestris, this species has become increasingly common, often found in sympatry with B. terrestris in some localities. While intestinal parasites such as the flagellate trypanosome Crithidia bombi, the microsporidium Nosema bombi, and the neogregarine protozoan Apicystis bombi, show high levels of specialization on the Bombus genus, parasites often increase their host range, especially after invading novel habitats, hence creating new infection disease scenarios. In this work, we used molecular techniques to detect the presence of the intestinal pathogens of B. terrestris in coexisting X. augusti from different localities in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. Our results revealed the presence of the three pathogens in B. terrestris only, with population prevalence broadly similar to that reported in other studies. The carpenter bee X. augusti did not show evidence of any of the three parasites examined, indicating that this invader species is not recipient of any of the parasite species present in B. terrestris. Keywords: Apicystis bombi, Crithidia bombi, Nosema bombi, Pathogen spillover
Introduction Pathogen spillover, broadly defined as the transfer of one or more pathogens from one reservoir host to a recipient host is one of the major factors influencing disease spread in natural populations. Spillover often occurs when infected host species invade novel habitats and transmit exotic parasites to native hosts, which often experience substantial reduction in reproduction and survival [1, 2]. Pathogen spillover occurs commonly in bee colonies transported from one region to another for commercial purposes because commercially-reared colonies often harbor parasites harmful to wild bees, resulting in disease epidemics, and native bee declines in wild * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Departamento de Ciencias Ecológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Las Palmeras 3425, Santiago, Chile Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
populations [3–5]. In this regard, Bombus terrestris Linnaeus (Apidae) (Fig. 1a), one of the most extensively used bumblebee species for crop pollination worldwide has been suggested to transmit their parasites to recipient native bees in southern South America [6, 7]. One of the parasites commonly harbored by B. terrestris is Crithidia bombi Lipa & Triggiani, a flagella
Data Loading...
