The DOI matches its Crossref record; 22 of the 22 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Varroa destructor feeds primarily on honey bee fat body tissue and not hemolymph
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Varroa destructor causes considerable damage to honey bees and subsequently the field of apiculture through just one process: feeding. For five decades, we have believed that these mites consume hemolymph like a tick consumes blood, and that Varroa cause harm primarily by vectoring viruses. Our work shows that they cause damage more directly.Varroa externally digest and consume fat body tissue rather than blood. These findings explain the failure of some previous attempts at developing effectively targeted treatment strategies for Varroa control. Furthermore, it provides some explanation for the diverse array of debilitating pathologies associated with Varroa that were unexplained by hemolymph removal alone. Our work provides a path forward for the development of novel treatment strategies for Varroa.
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Citations
Cites
Insect Fat Body: Energy, Metabolism, and Regulation
Arrese, E. L., & Soulages, J. L. (2010) · Annual Review of Entomology · doi:10.1146/annurev-ento-112408-085356 · Cited by 2,514
Biology and control of Varroa destructor
Rosenkranz, P., Aumeier, P., & Ziegelmann, B. (2009) · Journal of Invertebrate Pathology · doi:10.1016/j.jip.2009.07.016 · Cited by 1,657
Comprehensive insect physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology
Hoilmann, D. (1985) · International Journal of Biochemistry · doi:10.1016/0020-711x(85)90023-0 · Cited by 1,401
Neumann, P., & Carreck, N. L. (2010) · Journal of Apicultural Research · doi:10.3896/ibra.1.49.1.01 · Cited by 1,022
Maes, T., Jessop, R., Wellner, N., Haupt, K., & Mayes, A. G. (2017) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep44501 · Cited by 998
Spectrofluorometric studies of the lipid probe, nile red.
Greenspan, P., & Fowler, S. D. (1985) · Journal of Lipid Research · doi:10.1016/s0022-2275(20)34307-8 · Cited by 980
Yang, X., & Cox-Foster, D. L. (2005) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0501860102 · Cited by 567
Miscellaneous standard methods for Apis mellifera research
Human, H., Brodschneider, R., Dietemann, V., Dively, G., Ellis, J. D., Forsgren, E., Fries, I., Hatjina, F., Hu, F.-L., Jaffé, R., et al. (2013) · Journal of Apicultural Research · doi:10.3896/ibra.1.52.4.10 · Cited by 461
Self-citationMites: Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour.
(2000) · Australian Journal of Entomology · doi:10.1046/j.1440-6055.2000.0152b.x · Cited by 414
Social exploitation of vitellogenin
Amdam, G. V., Norberg, K., Hagen, A., & Omholt, S. W. (2003) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0333979100 · Cited by 401
Cited by
Insect hosts are nutritional landscapes navigated by fungal pathogens
De Fine Licht, H. H., Csontos, Z., Nielsen, P. J. D. N., Langkilde, E. B., Kjærgård Hansen, A. K., & Shik, J. Z. (2025) · Ecology · doi:10.1002/ecy.70015 · Cited by 5
(2025) · doi:10.1093/jee/toaf187 · Cited by 3
Metadata
- Authors
- Ramsey, S. D., Ochoa, R., Bauchan, G., Gulbronson, C., Mowery, J. D., Cohen, A., Lim, D., Joklik, J., Cicero, J. M., Ellis, J. D., Hawthorne, D., & vanEngelsdorp, D.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2019-01-15
- Volume
- 116
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1792-1801
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W2910400461
- Cited by
- 658
- References
- 22
- FWCI
- 56.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
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- Ramsey, S. D., Ochoa, R., Bauchan, G., Gulbronson, C., Mowery, J. D., Cohen, A., Lim, D., Joklik, J., Cicero, J. M., Ellis, J. D., Hawthorne, D., & vanEngelsdorp, D. (2019). Varroa destructor feeds primarily on honey bee fat body tissue and not hemolymph. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1818371116
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
