Gut Microbial Communities of Adult Honey Bee Workers (Apis Mellifera)

Marfat Alatawy^1,2*, Sanaa G. Al-Attas¹, Ahmad I. Assagaf¹, Abdullah Al-Shehri³, Khalid M. Alghamdi¹, Ahmed Bahieldin^1,4

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.71491

²Department of Biology, College of Science, Tabuk University, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.74191

³Department of Arid land Agriculture, Faculty of Metrology, Environment and Arid land Culture, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.80200

⁴Department of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. 11241

 Corresponding Author E-mail : mevalatawi@ut.edu.sa

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/2838

ABSTRACT: Apis mellifera honey bees are highly valued insects due to their roles in honey production and pollinating some globally important crops. However, honey bee colonies have been decreasing significantly around the world and this has drawn the attention to investigate factors that can affects bees health such as gut microbiome. Gut microbiome is considered an essential part of a honey bee system.  Honey bees gut microbiome consists of a nine core species which mostly obtained by social transmission. Current findings on gut microbiome specific strain variations, results on their metabolic and nutritional roles, and links between gut microbial disruption and disease states, have drawn the attention to how microbiota impacts bee health, and also being a potential model to study ecology as well as gut symbionts development. Overall, roles of gut microbiome in honey bees development are becoming much more evident.

KEYWORDS: Apis Mallifera; Dysbiosis; Gut Microbiome; Symbionts

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