Análisis virológico y epidemiológico del síndrome de despoblamiento de las colmenas en Españaestudio de causas y consecuencias

Abstract

The honey bee Apis mellifera is the main pollinator species used to increase the productivity of crops and it also has a central role in the conservation of the worldwide diversity. In the last decades, an increase in the mortality of honey bee colonies has been observed in many regions, causing a great alarm due to its potential economic and environmental consequences. This phenomenon, which has unknown causes, has been called "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD) when a depopulation of adult honey bees is observed, or "winter losses" when colonies do not survive to the winter by unidentified causes. These losses have also been observed in Spain, country within the European Union with the highest hive census and with important honey productions. This situation has generated the need to discover the cause of these losses. Nowadays it is considered that no single cause can explain this mortality, but this is a phenomenon where the interaction of multiple factors can affect honey bee colonies. Among these 'risk' factors some are highlighted, such as poor nutrition and lack of food resources, adverse climatology, exposure to neonicotinoid pesticides used in crops where bees forage, presence of natural predators and invasive species and presence of pathogens in the colonies. Viruses are important pathogens not only for their extensive prevalence and distribution and their association with colony mortality, but for the unknown aspects about their pathogenicity, how viruses can be affected by other factors and how viruses can alter the balance with the host leading to a pathological status ...