Genomics Archives - News@91��ɫ

Honey bees experience multiple health stressors out-in-the-field

sandramc — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 15:32:19 +0000

TORONTO, April 17, 2024 – It’s not a single pesticide or virus stressing honey bees, and affecting their health, but exposure to a complex web of multiple interacting stressors encountered while at work pollinating crops, found new research out of 91��ɫ.

Scientists have been unable to explain increasing colony mortality, even after decades of research examining the role of specific pesticides, parasitic mites, viruses or genetics. This led the research team to wonder if previous studies were missing something by focussing on one stressor at a time.

Amro Zayed

“Our study is the first to apply systems level or network analyses to honey bee stressors at a massive scale. I think this represents a paradigm shift in the field because we have been so focussed on finding the one big thing, the smoking gun,” says corresponding author of the new paper 91��ɫ Faculty of Science Professor , 91��ɫ Research Chair in Genomics. “But we are finding that bees are exposed to a very complicated network of stressors that change quickly over time and space. It's a level of complexity that we haven't thought about before. To me, that's the big surprise of this study.”

The paper, , published today in Current Biology, takes a much broader look at the interplay of stressors and their effects. The study team also included researchers from the University of British Columbia, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the University of Victoria, the University of Lethbridge, the University of Manitoba, l'Université Laval, the University of Guelph, and the Ontario Beekeepers' Association.

Not all stressors are the same, however. Some stressors are more influential than others – what researchers call the social media influencers of the bee world – having an outsized impact on the architecture of a highly complex network and their co-stressors. They also found that most of these influencer stressors are viruses and pesticides that regularly show up in combination with specific other stressors, compounding the negative effects through their interactions.

Sarah French

“Understanding which stressors co-occur and are likely to interact is profoundly important to unravelling how they are impacting the health and mortality of honey bee colonies,” says lead author, 91��ɫ Postdoctoral Fellow Sarah French of the Faculty of Science.

“There have been a lot of studies about major pesticides, but in this research, we also saw a lot of minor pesticides that we don’t usually think about or study. We also found a lot of viruses that beekeepers don’t typically test for or manage. Seeing the influencer stressors interact with all these other stressors, whether it be mites, other pesticides or viruses, was not only interesting, but surprising.”

French says the way influencer stressors co-occur with other stressors is similar to the way humans experience co-morbidities, such as when someone is diagnosed with heart disease. They are more likely to also have diabetes or high blood pressure or both, and each one impacts the other. “That’s similar to the way we examine bee colonies. We look at everything that's going on in the colony and then compare or amalgamate all the colonies together to look at the broader patterns of what is happening and how everything is related. Two or multiple stressors can really synergize off each other leading to a much greater effect on bee health.”

From Québec to British Columbia, honey bee colonies were given the job of pollinating some of Canada’s most valuable crops – apples, canola oil and seed, highbush and lowbush blueberry, soybean, cranberry and corn. The study covered multiple time scales, providing numerous snapshots, rather than the usual single snapshot in time. The research team found that honey bees were exposed to an average of 23 stressors at once that combined to create 307 interactions.

A beekeeper samples pollen from the comb of a honey bee hive from a colony located near canola crops in Lethbridge, Alberta for the BeeCSI project. Photo by Shelley Hoover

Honey bees are a billion dollar industry. In 2021, honey bees contributed some $7 billion in economic value by pollinating orchards, vegetables, berries and oil seeds like canola, and produced 75 to 90 million pounds of honey. Figuring which stressors would provide the most benefit if managed would go a long way toward developing the right tools to tackle them, something beekeepers are often lacking.

The research is part of the project funded to the tune of $10 million by Genome Canada in 2018 to use genomic tools to develop a new health assessment and diagnosis platform powered by stressor-specific markers.

More research is needed to unravel how the stressors are interacting and impacting honey bee mortality and colony health going forward, says French. “It's really teasing apart which of these compounds might have that relationship and how can we build off this to study those specific relationships.”

It can’t come soon enough, honey bees are currently facing poor health, colony loss, parasites, pathogens and heightened stressors worldwide. Some beekeepers in this country and the United States face a loss over winter of up to 60 per cent of their colonies.

“Our study suggests some combinations are occurring very frequently,” adds Zayed, “and that is relevant because we see them again and again, but we don't know how these combinations affect bee health. It helps to prioritize which experiments we can now take back to the lab and establish how these interactions affect bees.”

About 91��ɫ

91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact: Sandra McLean, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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Next-generation sequencing uncovers what’s stressing bumblebees

roshanp — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 12:35:50 +0000

TORONTO, July 6, 2021 – What’s stressing out bumblebees? To find out, 91��ɫ scientists used next-generation sequencing to look deep inside bumblebees for evidence of pesticide exposure, including neonicotinoids, as well as pathogens, and found both.

Using a conservation genomic approach – an emerging field of study that could radically change the way bee health is assessed – the researchers studied Bombus terricola or the yellow-banded bumblebee, a native to North America, in agricultural and non-agricultural areas. This new technique allows scientists to probe for invisible stressors affecting bees.

Yellow-banded bumblebee. Photo by Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change grad student Victoria MacPhail

Like many pollinators, the yellow-banded bumblebee has experienced major declines in the last couple decades, which threatens food security and the stability of natural ecosystems.

“Next-generation sequencing is a totally new way to think about why bees are declining, which could revolutionize conservation biology. We’re looking directly at bee tissues to try and get clues to the stressors that are affecting this bee. I think this is a gamechanger for sure. With a single study, we are able to implicate a couple of really obvious things we’ve talked about for years – pathogens and pesticides – in the case of Bombus terricola,” says Faculty of Science Professor , director of the Centre for Bee Ecology Evolution and Conservation (BEEc) at 91��ɫ and corresponding author of the study.

In addition to sequencing the RNA of 30 yellow-banded worker bees, the researchers also used the sequence data to directly search for pathogens infecting the bumblebees. The team found five pathogens in the abdomens of worker bees, three of which are common in managed honey bee and bumblebee colonies. This supports the theory that spill over of pathogens from commercial operations can affect the health of wild bees.

What surprised the researchers, including former 91��ɫ biology grad student Nadia Tsvetkov and Associate Professor of the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, is how well the technology worked.

Yellow-banded bumblebee. Photo by Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change grad student Victoria MacPhail

“Bumblebee diseases are a key threat and this technology can help us detect new diseases and stressors quickly so we don't lose species the way we did the rusty-patched bumblebee, where the problem was only detected when it was too late to do anything about it in Canada,” says Colla. “The rusty-patched bumblebee hasn’t been spotted in Canada since 2009.”

Bumblebees are particularly important pollinators, even better than honey bees for some plants, because their ability to “buzz” pollinate (vibrate the plants to release pollen) and tolerate cooler temperatures, which makes them critical pollinators for certain plants and regions.

Expanding the scope of conservation genomic studies will help to better understand how multiple stressors influence the health of other bumblebee populations.

“We think this is the way forward in terms of managing and conserving bumblebees,” says Zayed.

The paper, , was published recently in the journal .

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91��ɫ is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change and prepare our students for success. 91��ɫ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91��ɫ’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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91��ɫ creates new hive of interdisciplinary bee research

roshanp — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 13:03:22 +0000

TORONTO, June 30, 2020 – Researchers from disciplines across 91��ɫ, including biologists, social scientists and mathematicians, will develop a hive of research when 91��ɫ’s new (BEEc) becomes an Organized Research Unit (ORU) starting July 1.

The Senate of 91��ɫ approved the move earlier this year to make BEEc the University’s 26th ORU, enabling it to dive deeper into the crisis affecting the health and decline of bees globally.

“91��ɫ’s ORUs have a strong history of highly innovative and collaborative research,” said Vice-President Research & Innovation Amir Asif. “Steeped in 91��ɫ’s tradition of collegial interdisciplinarity, ORUs serve as synergistic hubs for participatory research programs that bring together expertise from across disciplines.”

The new ORU will provide a place where experts can collaborate on innovative, cutting-edge research on bees to help further knowledge, train future leaders in the field, educate the public and affect policy that will make a difference for pollinators locally, as well as globally.

“We are thrilled that our proposal was approved by Senate. The bee crisis is multidimensional and there is no simple solution. BEEc will allow us to bring talented biologists and mathematicians, but also engineers, social scientists and economists to help us answer the big questions in the field,” says Amro Zayed, research chair in Genomics and BEEc director.

BEEc researchers will study the health, behaviour, biodiversity, genomics and conservation of bees, with the goal of enhancing their long-term sustainability, and that of the important crops and plants that rely on bees for pollination.

Meet some of the core researchers:

Associate of the Faculty of Science uses genomics to understand why native bees and honey bees are declining, and develops tools to circumvent these declines.

Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Environmental Studies researches native bees to find out why they’re in decline and develops conservation efforts with a special focus on at-risk bumblebees.

Professor , a Distinguished Research Professor, studies native bees and is constantly contributing new species records to the global list of over 20,300 species. He has built and continues to maintain the largest Canadian collection of bees, currently estimated at over 500,000 specimens from all over the globe.

Professor of the Faculty of Science is an expert on social insect genomics and pollinator health combining molecular evolution, behavioural ecology, population genetics, and phylogenetics to understand the sociobiology, biogeography, nutritional requirements, and sustainability of bees.

Professor of the Faculty of Science and director of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Disease Modelling is applying her modelling skills to help understand how pathogens and pests affect colony health.

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91��ɫ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. 91��ɫ students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. 91��ɫ U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, 91��ɫ is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni. 91��ɫ U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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Scientists set to start $10M project to create health diagnosis tool for bees

roshanp — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:54:30 +0000

91��ɫ to develop ‘BeeCSI’ tool to help Canada’s rapidly declining honey bees

TORONTO, September 18, 2019 – When Canada’s honey bees are thriving, they produce honey and pollinate valuable crops like blueberries, apples and hybrid canola seeds.

But the health of honey bees is declining, with more than a quarter of honey bee colonies dying each winter. These deaths have left beekeepers and government regulators struggling to find ways to quickly diagnose, manage and improve bee health.

The solution could be a new bee health diagnosis tool being created as part of a research project led by bee genomics expert Associate Professor , of 91��ɫ, along with Professor Leonard Foster, of the University of British Columbia. On October 1, they will launch a $10 million project to develop a new health assessment and diagnosis platform, supported by Ontario Genomics and Genome Canada.

“We need to think of innovative solutions to fix the bee health crisis. The current tools are just not cutting it,” said Zayed in the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science.

Honey bees produce 90 million pounds of honey each year and are needed to pollinate some of Canada’s most lucrative crops. Their pollination services are valued at $5.5 billion per year in Canada alone.

The causes of bee decline are complex, variable, and difficult to identify. But beekeepers and government regulators need to rapidly identify the stressors impacting specific populations before they can make changes to improve bee health. Currently, the industry uses post-mortem analysis to test for the presence of a few known pathogens or toxins in dead colonies. These tests are often expensive, time consuming, and provide an incomplete picture of the stressors affecting bee health.

The research team is looking to modernize the industry by delivering a tool to quickly assess bee health in living colonies that would allow loss-mitigating strategies to be implemented.

“You can identify the stressors affecting a colony, not by searching for the stressor itself, but by looking for specific signatures of stress in the bee – what we call biomarkers,” explained Zayed. “The biomarker approach has a lot of potential for quickly screening stressors affecting bees before colonies decline.”

The researchers will use genomic tools to measure stressor-induced changes in bees to identify biomarkers for specific stressors. By the end of the project, the researchers envision a system where beekeepers can send their samples for biomarker testing and receive a report with both a health assessment and information on the most effective management strategies, which can then be applied in the field to improve the health of their colonies.

The research team is comprised of 22 researchers from across Canada including researchers from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), University of Manitoba, University of Guelph and University of Laval. The project is funded through Genome Canada’s Large-Scale Applied Research Project Competition: Genomics Solutions for Agriculture, Agri-food, Fisheries and Aquaculture. Funding partners include Genome Canada, AAFC, Genome British Columbia and Genome Quebec.

91��ɫ U's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact: Vanessa Thompson, 91��ɫ Media Relations, 647-654-9452, vthomps@yorku.ca

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