Industrial bees: the impact of apicultural intensification on local disease 1 prevalence
Bartlett, LJ; Rozins, C; Brosi, BJ; et al.Delaplane, KS; de Roode, JC; White, A; Wilfert, L; Boots, M
Date: 16 July 2019
Journal
Journal of Applied Ecology
Publisher
Wiley
Publisher DOI
Abstract
1) It is generally thought that the intensification of farming will result in higher disease prevalences,
although there is little specific modelling testing this idea. Focussing on honeybees, we build multi18 colony models to inform how ‘apicultural intensification’ is predicted to impact honeybee pathogen
epidemiology at the apiary ...
1) It is generally thought that the intensification of farming will result in higher disease prevalences,
although there is little specific modelling testing this idea. Focussing on honeybees, we build multi18 colony models to inform how ‘apicultural intensification’ is predicted to impact honeybee pathogen
epidemiology at the apiary scale.
2) We used both agent-based and analytical models to show that three linked aspects of apicultural
intensification (increased population sizes, changes in population network structure, and increased
between-colony transmission) are unlikely to greatly increase disease prevalence in apiaries.
Principally this is because even low-intensity apiculture exhibits high disease prevalence.
3) The greatest impacts of apicultural intensification are found for diseases with relatively low R0 (basic
reproduction number), however, such diseases cause little overall disease prevalence and therefore
the impacts of intensification are minor. Furthermore, the smallest impacts of intensification are for
diseases with high R0 values, which we argue are typical of important honeybee diseases.
4) Policy Implications: Our findings contradict the idea that apicultural intensification by crowding
honeybee colonies in large, dense apiaries leads to notably higher disease prevalences for
established honeybee pathogens. More broadly, our work demonstrates the need for informative
models of all agricultural systems and management practices in order to understand the implications
of management changes on diseases
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