Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

DrPeterGraystock

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences

Lecturer in Human and Animal Health
 
 
 
//

Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2255p.graystock Website

 
 
//

Location

 

2.4MunroSilwood Park

//

Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Graystock:2020:10.1038/s41559-020-1247-x,
author = {Graystock, P and Ng, WH and Parks, K and Tripodi, AD and Muniz, PA and Fersch, AA and Myers, CR and McFrederick, QS and McArt, SH},
doi = {10.1038/s41559-020-1247-x},
journal = {Nature Ecology and Evolution},
pages = {1358--1367},
title = {Dominant bee species and floral abundance drive parasite temporal dynamics in plant-pollinator communities},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1247-x},
volume = {4},
year = {2020}
}
Download

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Pollinator reductions can leave communities less diverse and potentially at increased risk of infectious diseases. Species-rich plant and bee communities have high species turnover, making the study of disease dynamics challenging. To address how temporal dynamics shape parasite prevalence in plant and bee communities, we screened >5,000 bees and flowers over an entire growing season for five common bee microparasites (Nosema ceranae, Nosema bombi, Crithidia bombi, Crithidia expoeki and neogregarines). Over 110 bee species and 89 flower species were screened, revealing that 42% of bee species (12.2% individual bees) and 70% of flower species (8.7% individual flowers) had at least one parasite in or on them, respectively. Some common flowers (for example, Lychnis flos-cuculi) harboured multiple parasite species whilst others (for example, Lythrum salicaria) had few. Significant temporal variation of parasite prevalence in bees was linked to bee diversity, bee and flower abundance and community composition. Specifically, we found that bee communities had the highest prevalence late in the season, when social bees (Bombus spp. and Apis mellifera) were dominant and bee diversity was lowest. Conversely, prevalence on flowers was lowest late in the season when floral abundance was highest. Thus turnover in the bee community impacted community-wide prevalence, and turnover in the plant community impacted when parasite transmission was likely to occur at flowers. These results imply that efforts to improve bee health will benefit from the promotion of high floral numbers to reduce transmission risk, maintaining bee diversity to dilute parasites and monitoring the abundance of dominant competent hosts.
AU  - Graystock,P
AU  - Ng,WH
AU  - Parks,K
AU  - Tripodi,AD
AU  - Muniz,PA
AU  - Fersch,AA
AU  - Myers,CR
AU  - McFrederick,QS
AU  - McArt,SH
DO  - 10.1038/s41559-020-1247-x
EP  - 1367
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 2397-334X
SP  - 1358
TI  - Dominant bee species and floral abundance drive parasite temporal dynamics in plant-pollinator communities
T2  - Nature Ecology and Evolution
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1247-x
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000550647300002&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1247-x
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/84281
VL  - 4
ER  -
Download