Microbial communities associated with honey bees in Brazil and in the United States

• Published in: Brazilian journal of microbiology 2021-12, Vol.52 (4), p.2097-2115
• Main Authors: de Oliveira Scoaris, Denise, Hughes, Frederic Mendes, Silveira, Milton Adolfo, Evans, Jay Daniel, Pettis, Jeffery Stuart, Bastos, Esther Margarida Alves Ferreira, Rosa, Carlos Augusto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Apis mellifera; Bacteria; Bacteria - genetics; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; Bees; Bees - microbiology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Brazil; Cluster analysis; Education in Microbiology - Research Paper; Food Microbiology; Honey; Life Sciences; Medical Microbiology; Microbial activity; Microbial Ecology; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Microbiology; Microbiomes; Microbiota; Microbiota - physiology; Microorganisms; Mycology; Pollen; Pollen - microbiology; Relative abundance; Species; Substrates; Symbiosis; United States; Yeast; Yeasts; Yeasts - physiology
• ISSN: 1517-8382; 1678-4405
• DOI: 10.1007/s42770-021-00539-7

Honey bee colony losses worldwide call for a more in-depth understanding of the pathogenic and mutualistic components of the honey bee microbiota and their relation with the environment. In this descriptive study, we characterized the yeast and bacterial communities that arise from six substrates associated with honey bees: corbicular pollen, beebread, hive debris, intestinal contents, body surface of nurses and forager bees, comparing two different landscapes, Minas Gerais, Brazil and Maryland, United States. The sampling of five hives in Brazil and four in the USA yielded 217 yeast and 284 bacterial isolates. Whereas the yeast community, accounted for 47 species from 29 genera, was dominated in Brazil by Aureobasidium  sp. and Candida orthopsilosis , the major yeast recovered from the USA was Debaryomyces hansenii . The bacterial community was more diverse, encompassing 65 species distributed across 31 genera. Overall, most isolates belonged to Firmicutes, genus Bacillus. Among LAB, species from Lactobacillus were the most prevalent. Cluster analysis evidenced high structuration of the microbial communities, with two distinguished microbial groups between Brazil and the United States. In general, the higher difference among sites and substrates were dependents on the turnover effect (~ 93% of the beta diversity), with a more pronounced effect of nestedness (~ 28%) observed from Brazil microbiota change. The relative abundance of yeasts and bacteria also showed the dissimilarity of the microbial communities between both environments. These results provide a comprehensive view of microorganisms associated with A. mellifera , highlighting the importance of the environment in the establishment of the microbiota associated with honey bees.