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Lethal infection thresholds of Paenibacillus larvae for honeybee drone and worker larvae ( Apis mellifera )
Author(s) -
Behrens Dieter,
Forsgren Eva,
Fries Ingemar,
Moritz Robin F. A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2010.02257.x
Subject(s) - american foulbrood , biology , brood , drone , larva , zoology , honey bee , microbiology and biotechnology , veterinary medicine , ecology , botany , medicine
Summary We compared the mortality of honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) drone and worker larvae from a single queen under controlled in vitro conditions following infection with Paenibacillus larvae , a bacterium causing the brood disease American Foulbrood (AFB). We also determined absolute P. larvae cell numbers and lethal titres in deceased individuals of both sexes up to 8 days post infection using quantitative real‐time PCR (qPCR). Our results show that in drones the onset of infection induced mortality is delayed by 1 day, the cumulative mortality is reduced by 10% and P. larvae cell numbers are higher than in worker larvae. Since differences in bacterial cell titres between sexes can be explained by differences in body size, larval size appears to be a key parameter for a lethal threshold in AFB tolerance. Both means and variances for lethal thresholds are similar for drone and worker larvae suggesting that drone resistance phenotypes resemble those of related workers.