Small but Mite-y: Varroa mites may drive virus spillover and impact wild bee health
Global decline of insect pollinators has been extensively documented in the past few decades, and two key drivers are the loss of natural habitat and emerging infectious diseases. However, much remains unknown regarding the threat of land-use change and viral pathogens to wild bee and hover fly communities. In Chapter 1, I investigated how the abundance, richness, and community composition of wild bee and hover fly populations respond to anthropogenic land use. I found that bees and hover flies showed contrasting responses human-modified landscapes; hover flies were significantly more abundant in human-modified habitats than natural ones, while bees were significantly more abundant and diverse in natural habitats compared to human-modified habitats writ large. In Chapter 2, I investigated whether beekeeper management (specifically, control of varroa mites) impacted the magnitude of deformed wing virus (DWV) spillover from honey bees into wild pollinators. I found that higher levels of varroa in an apiary led to greater DWV loads in honey bees, greater DWV prevalence on flowers, and greater DWV prevalence in wild bumble bees and other bee and hover fly pollinators. Taken together, these results provide multiple lines of evidence that varroa infestations facilitate virus spillover from managed honey bees to wild bees across shared floral resources. Given high prevalence of deformed wing virus in the Chapter 2 field study, in Chapter 3, I investigated the effect of DWV on non-Apis bee species with a series of inoculation bioassays. I found that injection with DWV negatively impacted survivorship of Bombus impatiens and horn-faced mason bee Osmia cornifrons, but did not impact survivorship of Osmia lignaria. However, when B. impatiens and O. cornifrons were orally fed DWV, there was no effect on mortality at any viral concentration. Overall, my dissertation shows that sustainable beekeeping practices can limit viral spillover through the control of varroa mites, though the effect of deformed wing virus on non-Apis pollinator health is dependent on species identity and mode of transmission. My results have direct applications to improving beekeeper management of colonies with the aim of reducing pathogen stress for both managed and wild pollinators alike.