Pusceddu Michelina, Cini Alessandro, Alberti Simona, Salaris Emanuele, Theodorou Panagiotis, Floris Ignazio, Satta Alberto
Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Sassari, viale Italia 39A, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
Sci Adv. 2021 Oct 29;7(44):eabj1398. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj1398.
Social distancing in response to infectious diseases is a strategy exhibited by human and nonhuman animals to counteract the spread of pathogens and/or parasites. Honey bee () colonies are ideal models to study this behavior because of the compartmentalized structure of these societies, evolved under exposure to parasite pressure and the need to ensure efficient functioning. Here, by using a combination of spatial and behavioral approaches, we investigated whether the presence of the ectoparasite mite induces changes in the social organization of colonies that could reduce the spread of the parasite. Our results demonstrated that honey bees react to the intrusion of by modifying space use and social interactions to increase the social distancing between young (nurses) and old (foragers) cohorts of bees. These findings strongly suggest a behavioral strategy not previously reported in honey bees to limit the intracolony parasite transmission.
为应对传染病而保持社交距离是人类和非人类动物所展现出的一种策略，用于对抗病原体和/或寄生虫的传播。蜜蜂（）蜂群是研究这种行为的理想模型，因为这些社会群体具有分区结构，是在寄生虫压力以及确保高效运作的需求下进化而来的。在这里，我们结合空间和行为学方法，研究体外寄生虫螨的存在是否会引发蜜蜂蜂群社会组织的变化，从而减少寄生虫的传播。我们的结果表明，蜜蜂会通过改变空间利用和社交互动来应对螨的入侵，以增加年轻（保育蜂）和年老（采蜜蜂）蜂群之间的社交距离。这些发现有力地表明了一种此前未在蜜蜂中报道过的行为策略，以限制蜂群内寄生虫的传播。
