IAP Virus causing Bee Colony Collapse Disorder in US

[Sharpe]

<table class="LayoutTable" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td>Very interesting. Published in Science Magazine this week.








Published Online September 6, 2007
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1146498
</td> <td>Science Express Index
</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Reports

<!-- BEGIN: legacy HTML content --><!--RESUMEHIGHLIGHT--> <vardef id="TEXT"> <!-- Page created by HighWire's PIP system --> </vardef> [SIZE=-1]Submitted on June 14, 2007[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Accepted on August 30, 2007[/SIZE]


A Metagenomic Survey of Microbes in Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

<nobr>Diana L. Cox-Foster ¹, </nobr> <nobr>Sean Conlan ², </nobr> <nobr>Edward C. Holmes ³, </nobr> <nobr>Gustavo Palacios ², </nobr> <nobr>Jay D. Evans ⁴, </nobr> <nobr>Nancy A. Moran ⁵, </nobr> <nobr>Phenix-Lan Quan ², </nobr> <nobr>Thomas Briese ², </nobr> <nobr>Mady Hornig ², </nobr> <nobr>David M. Geiser ⁶, </nobr> <nobr>Vince Martinson ⁷, </nobr> <nobr>Dennis vanEngelsdorp ⁸, </nobr> <nobr>Abby L. Kalkstein ¹, </nobr> <nobr>Andrew Drysdale ², </nobr> <nobr>Jeffrey Hui ², </nobr> <nobr>Junhui Zhai ², </nobr> <nobr>Liwang Cui ¹, </nobr> <nobr>Stephen K. Hutchison ⁹, </nobr> <nobr>Jan Fredrik Simons ⁹, </nobr> <nobr>Michael Egholm ⁹, </nobr> <nobr>Jeffery S. Pettis ⁴, </nobr> <nobr>W. Ian Lipkin ²^*</nobr> ¹ Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, 501 ASI building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
² Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.
³ Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, Mueller Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, USA.; Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
⁴ Bee Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA.
⁵ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁶ Department of Plant Pathology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
⁷ The Center for Insect Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
⁸ Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, 501 ASI building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.; The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry - Apiculture, Harrisburg, PA 17110, USA.
⁹ 454 Life Sciences, Branford, CT 06405, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
W. Ian Lipkin , E-mail: wil2001@columbia.edu<script type="text/javascript"><!-- var u = "wil2001", d = "columbia.edu"; document.getElementById("em0").innerHTML = '<a href="mailto:' + u + '@' + d + '">' + u + '@' + d + '<\/a>'//--></script>

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In colony collapse disorder (CCD), honey bee colonies inexplicablylose their workers. CCD has resulted in a loss of 50 to 90%of colonies in beekeeping operations across the United States.The observation that irradiated combs from affected coloniescan be repopulated with naive bees suggests that infection maycontribute to CCD. We used an unbiased metagenomic approachto survey microflora in CCD hives, normal hives, and importedroyal jelly. Candidate pathogens were screened for significanceof association with CCD by examination of samples collectedfrom several sites over a period of 3 years. One organism, Israeliacute paralysis virus of bees (IAPV), was strongly correlatedwith CCD.