Already in a harsh decline, wild bumblebees are now being afflicted by at least two diseases known to harm mostly honeybees, a new study says.
Published in the journal Nature, BBC News reported, scientists say deformed wing virus and Nosema ceranae, a fungal parasite, was found in wild bumblebees across England, Scotland and Wales. It is already well documented that wild bumblebees are in a steep decline in several parts of the world.
"Wild and managed bees are in decline at national and global scales," study co-author Matthias Fürst, of the Royal Holloway, University of London, said in a press release. "Given their central role in pollinating wildflowers and crops, it is essential that we understand what lies behind these declines. Our results suggest that emerging diseases, spread from managed bees, may be an important cause of wild bee decline."
Deformed wing virus is a terrible condition for bees of any kind and is known to significantly shorten one's lifespan. It is also made worse by the presence of a fungal parasite and may collapse a colony if it became widespread.
"A significantly shorter lifespan in the field would impact on their ability to go out and collect food and look after other bees," study co-author Mark Brown, also from Royal Holloway, University of London, told BBC News.
"A geographical patterning provides us with the information that transmission is occurring among these animals - they are sharing parasite strains," he said. "We cannot say it definitively, but because of the epidemiology, the most likely explanation is that the honeybees are acting as the source of the virus for the bumblebees."
According to the Associated Press, losing a colony all at once can be very damaging. In the U.S., bumblebees are worth approximately $3 billion for their pollination of fruits and flowers. Honeybees are worth an estimated $20 billion.
"National societies and agencies, both in the UK and globally, currently manage so-called honeybee diseases on the basis that they are a threat only to honeybees," Brown said in the release. "While they are doing great work, our research shows that this premise is not true, and that the picture is much more complex. Policies to manage these diseases need to take into account threats to wild pollinators and be designed to reduce the impact of these diseases not just on managed honeybees, but on our wild bumblebees too."
