Virulence Evolution of Fungal Pathogens in Social and Solitary Bees with an Emphasis on Multiple Infections

TL;DRAbstract

The health of pollinators, especially bees, is of the utmost importance to success of many agricultural ecosystems. Microorganisms can cause diseases in bees; such microbes are pathogenic. The ability of a pathogen to cause harm to its host (such as a bee) is termed its virulence. Studying the evolution of different levels of virulence can lead researchers to a better understanding of pathogens, and potentially predict how much harm a pathogen can cause in the future. We studied the evolution of virulence levels for a fungal disease of bees. This group of fungi is composed of 28 species, and some cause a disease in bees called chalkbrood while others do not. Using what we know about virulence evolution we wanted to see if the pathogens could infect all bees, if the pathogens varied in virulence when infecting at the same time as another pathogen, and if solitary bees had any behavioral adaptations that might increase or decrease chalkbrood infection. By using DNA sequences, the relatio

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