von Büren Raphael S, Oehen Bernadette, Kuhn Nikolaus J, Erler Silvio
Department of Environmental Sciences, Physical Geography and Environmental Change, Universität Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture-FiBL, Frick, Switzerland.
PeerJ. 2019 Jan 31;7:e6393. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6393. eCollection 2019.
Honey bees directly affect and are influenced by their local environment, in terms of food sources, pollinator densities, pathogen and toxin exposure and climate. Currently, there is a lack of studies analyzing these data with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to investigate spatial relationships with the environment. Particularly for inter-colonial pathogen transmission, it is known that the likelihood of a healthy colony to become infested (e.g., Varroosis) or infected (e.g., American foulbrood-AFB, European foulbrood-EFB) increases with higher colony density. Whether these transmission paths can actually be asserted at apiary level is largely unknown. Here, we unraveled spatial distribution and high-resolution density of apiaries and bacterial honey bee brood diseases in Switzerland based on available GIS data. Switzerland as 'model country' offers the unique opportunity to get apiary data since 2010 owing to compulsory registration for every beekeeper. Further, both destructive bee brood diseases (AFB and EFB) are legally notifiable in Switzerland, and EFB has an epizootic character for the last decades. As governmental data sets have to be ameliorated, raw data from the cantonal agricultural or veterinary offices have been included. We found a mean density of 0.56 apiaries per km, and high resolution spatial analyzes showed strong correlation between density of apiaries and human population density as well as agricultural landscape type. Concerning two bacterial bee brood diseases (AFB, EFB), no significant correlation was detectable with density of apiaries on cantonal level, though a high correlation of EFB cases and apiary density became obvious on higher resolution (district level). Hence, Swiss EFB epizootics seem to have benefited from high apiary densities, promoting the transmission of pathogens by adult bees. The GIS-based method presented here, might also be useful for other bee diseases, anthropogenic or environmental factors affecting bee colonies.
蜜蜂会直接受到当地环境的影响，同时也会对其产生影响，这体现在食物来源、传粉者密度、病原体和毒素暴露以及气候等方面。目前，缺乏利用地理信息系统（GIS）分析这些数据以研究与环境的空间关系的研究。特别是对于殖民地间的病原体传播，已知健康蜂群受到侵染（如蜂螨病）或感染（如美洲幼虫腐臭病-AFB、欧洲幼虫腐臭病-EFB）的可能性会随着蜂群密度的增加而增大。这些传播途径在养蜂场层面是否真的存在，很大程度上尚不清楚。在此，我们基于现有的GIS数据，揭示了瑞士养蜂场的空间分布和高分辨率密度以及蜜蜂幼虫细菌性疾病情况。瑞士作为“模范国家”，自2010年起由于要求每个养蜂人进行强制登记，提供了获取养蜂场数据的独特机会。此外，在瑞士，两种具有破坏性的蜜蜂幼虫疾病（AFB和EFB）在法律上都是应报告的疾病，并且在过去几十年中EFB具有动物流行病的特征。由于政府数据集需要改进，因此纳入了来自各州农业或兽医办公室的原始数据。我们发现每平方公里养蜂场的平均密度为0.56个，高分辨率空间分析表明养蜂场密度与人口密度以及农业景观类型之间存在很强的相关性。关于两种蜜蜂幼虫细菌性疾病（AFB、EFB），在州层面上与养蜂场密度没有明显的相关性，不过在更高分辨率（地区层面）上，EFB病例与养蜂场密度的高度相关性变得明显。因此，瑞士的EFB动物流行病似乎受益于高养蜂场密度，促进了成年蜜蜂对病原体的传播。这里介绍的基于GIS的方法，可能对其他蜜蜂疾病、影响蜂群的人为或环境因素也有用。
