Honey bee colonies all over Europe and North America have been declining dramatically for over three decades and is continuing to do so which is causing significant threats to economy, agriculture and ecosystems. The main reason behind the declining colonies is an ectoparasitic mite known as Varroa destructor and viruses vectored by the mite. In previous studies, it has been suggested that a unique mite-resistant subpopulation of honey bees (Apis mellifera) in Gotland, Sweden have developed adaptive tolerance to these viruses as they have managed to survive high mite infestation through natural selection without any mite control treatment. This indicates that there might be a correlation between resistance to Varroa destructor and virus tolerance. This project examined if a correlation between virus resistance and/or virus tolerance can be observed in Varroa-resistant honey bees from unique subpopulations in Europe covering Sweden, Norway, France and Netherlands. Results showed that no correlation could be established based on the findings in this project. However, significant differences in winter colony survival numbers between mite-resistant and mite-susceptible honey bees suggest that tolerance mechanisms could be present in these subpopulations. Further studies are required to verify this hypothesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-355914 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Bouro Wallgren, Sofia |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för kvinnors och barns hälsa |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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