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Citation for Study 13472

Citation title: "Diversity and evolutionary patterns of bacterial gut associates of corbiculate bees".

Study name: "Diversity and evolutionary patterns of bacterial gut associates of corbiculate bees".

This study is part of submission 13472 (Status: Published).

Citation

Koch H., & Schmid-hempel P. 2013. Diversity and evolutionary patterns of bacterial gut associates of corbiculate bees. Molecular Ecology, .

Authors

• Koch H. (submitter)
• Schmid-hempel P.

Abstract

The animal gut is a habitat for diverse communities of microorganisms (microbiota). Honey bees and bumble bees have recently been shown to harbour a distinct and species poor microbiota, which may confer protection against parasites. Here we investigate diversity, host specificity and transmission mode of two of the most common, yet poorly known, gut bacteria of honey bees and bumble bees: Snodgrassella alvi (Betaproteobacteria) & Gilliamella apicola (Gammaproteobacteria). We analysed 16S rRNA gene sequences of these bacteria from diverse bee host species across most of the honey bee and bumble bee phylogenetic diversity from North America, Europe, and Asia. These focal bacteria were present in 92% of bumble bee species and all honey bee species, but were found to be absent in the two related corbiculate bee tribes, the stingless bees (Meliponini) and orchid bees (Euglossini). Both Snodgrassella alvi and Gilliamella apicola phylogenies show significant topological congruence with the phylogeny of their bee hosts, albeit with a considerable degree of putative host switches. Furthermore, we found that phylogenetic distances between Gilliamella apicola samples correlated with the geographical distance between sampling locations. This tentatively suggests that the environmental transmission rate, as set by geographical distance, affects the distribution of G. apicola infections. We show experimentally that both bacterial taxa can be vertically transmitted from the mother colony to daughter queens, and social contact with nest mates after emergence from the pupa greatly facilitates this transmission. Therefore, sociality may play an important role in vertical transmission and opens up the potential for coevolution or at least a close association of gut bacteria with their hosts.

External links

About this resource

• Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S13472
• Other versions: Nexus NeXML
• Show BibTeX reference

  		@ARTICLE{TreeBASE2Ref21420,
  	 author = {Hauke  Koch and Paul  Schmid-Hempel},
  	 title = {Diversity and evolutionary patterns of bacterial gut associates of corbiculate bees},
  	 year = {2013},
  	 keywords = {},
  	 doi = {},
  	 url = {http://},
  	 pmid = {},
  	 journal = {Molecular Ecology},
  	 volume = {},
  	 number = {},
  	 pages = {},
  	 abstract = {The animal gut is a habitat for diverse communities of microorganisms (microbiota). Honey bees and bumble bees have recently been shown to harbour a distinct and species poor microbiota, which may confer protection against parasites. Here we investigate diversity, host specificity and transmission mode of two of the most common, yet poorly known, gut bacteria of honey bees and bumble bees: Snodgrassella alvi (Betaproteobacteria) & Gilliamella apicola (Gammaproteobacteria). We analysed 16S rRNA gene sequences of these bacteria from diverse bee host species across most of the honey bee and bumble bee phylogenetic diversity from North America, Europe, and Asia. These focal bacteria were present in 92% of bumble bee species and all honey bee species, but were found to be absent in the two related corbiculate bee tribes, the stingless bees (Meliponini) and orchid bees (Euglossini). Both Snodgrassella alvi and Gilliamella apicola phylogenies show significant topological congruence with the phylogeny of their bee hosts, albeit with a considerable degree of putative host switches. Furthermore, we found that phylogenetic distances between Gilliamella apicola samples correlated with the geographical distance between sampling locations. This tentatively suggests that the environmental transmission rate, as set by geographical distance, affects the distribution of G. apicola infections. We show experimentally that both bacterial taxa can be vertically transmitted from the mother colony to daughter queens, and social contact with nest mates after emergence from the pupa greatly facilitates this transmission. Therefore, sociality may play an important role in vertical transmission and opens up the potential for coevolution or at least a close association of gut bacteria with their hosts. }
  }
  		

• Show RIS reference

  		TY  - JOUR
  ID  - 21420
  AU  - Koch,Hauke 
  AU  - Schmid-Hempel,Paul 
  T1  - Diversity and evolutionary patterns of bacterial gut associates of corbiculate bees
  PY  - 2013
  KW  - 
  UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
  N2  - The animal gut is a habitat for diverse communities of microorganisms (microbiota). Honey bees and bumble bees have recently been shown to harbour a distinct and species poor microbiota, which may confer protection against parasites. Here we investigate diversity, host specificity and transmission mode of two of the most common, yet poorly known, gut bacteria of honey bees and bumble bees: Snodgrassella alvi (Betaproteobacteria) & Gilliamella apicola (Gammaproteobacteria). We analysed 16S rRNA gene sequences of these bacteria from diverse bee host species across most of the honey bee and bumble bee phylogenetic diversity from North America, Europe, and Asia. These focal bacteria were present in 92% of bumble bee species and all honey bee species, but were found to be absent in the two related corbiculate bee tribes, the stingless bees (Meliponini) and orchid bees (Euglossini). Both Snodgrassella alvi and Gilliamella apicola phylogenies show significant topological congruence with the phylogeny of their bee hosts, albeit with a considerable degree of putative host switches. Furthermore, we found that phylogenetic distances between Gilliamella apicola samples correlated with the geographical distance between sampling locations. This tentatively suggests that the environmental transmission rate, as set by geographical distance, affects the distribution of G. apicola infections. We show experimentally that both bacterial taxa can be vertically transmitted from the mother colony to daughter queens, and social contact with nest mates after emergence from the pupa greatly facilitates this transmission. Therefore, sociality may play an important role in vertical transmission and opens up the potential for coevolution or at least a close association of gut bacteria with their hosts. 
  L3  - 
  JF  - Molecular Ecology
  VL  - 
  IS  - 
  ER  -