TitleInvestigating the viral ecology of global bee communities with high-throughput metagenomics.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2018
AuthorsGalbraith DA, Fuller ZL, Ray AM, Brockmann A, Frazier M, Gikungu MW, J Martinez FIturralde, Kapheim KM, Kerby JT, Kocher SD, Losyev O, Muli E, Patch HM, Rosa C, Sakamoto JM, Stanley S, Vaudo AD, Grozinger CM
JournalSci Rep
Volume8
Issue1
Pagination8879
Date Published2018 Jun 11
ISSN2045-2322
Abstract

Bee viral ecology is a fascinating emerging area of research: viruses exert a range of effects on their hosts, exacerbate impacts of other environmental stressors, and, importantly, are readily shared across multiple bee species in a community. However, our understanding of bee viral communities is limited, as it is primarily derived from studies of North American and European Apis mellifera populations. Here, we examined viruses in populations of A. mellifera and 11 other bee species from 9 countries, across 4 continents and Oceania. We developed a novel pipeline to rapidly and inexpensively screen for bee viruses. This pipeline includes purification of encapsulated RNA/DNA viruses, sequence-independent amplification, high throughput sequencing, integrated assembly of contigs, and filtering to identify contigs specifically corresponding to viral sequences. We identified sequences for (+)ssRNA, (-)ssRNA, dsRNA, and ssDNA viruses. Overall, we found 127 contigs corresponding to novel viruses (i.e. previously not observed in bees), with 27 represented by >0.1% of the reads in a given sample, and 7 contained an RdRp or replicase sequence which could be used for robust phylogenetic analysis. This study provides a sequence-independent pipeline for viral metagenomics analysis, and greatly expands our understanding of the diversity of viruses found in bee communities.

DOI10.1038/s41598-018-27164-z
Alternate JournalSci Rep
PubMed ID29891995