ArticleScientific reports2021
Eristalis flower flies can be mechanical vectors of the common trypanosome bee parasite, Crithidia bombi.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Shared pathogens among honey bees, wild bees and hoverflies in mountain ecosystems.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Scoop That Poop: Optimising Faecal Sample Pre-Processing for Parasite Metabarcoding.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- 16S rRNA sequence dataset for the identification of the French hoverflies (Diptera, Syrphidae).Biodiversity data journal · 2026Article
- Gut microbiome of Vespa orientalis: functional insights and potential honey bee pathogen dynamics.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- The trypanosomatid (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae) parasites in bees: A review on their environmental circulation, impacts and implications.Current research in insect science · 2025Review
- Honeybee visitation to shared flowers increasesEcology and evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Article
- Flower sharing and pollinator health: a behavioural perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Bowel Movement: Integrating Host Mobility and Microbial Transmission Across Host Taxa.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Flowers can be transmission platforms for parasites that impact bee health, yet bees share floral resources with other pollinator taxa, such as flies, that may be hosts or non-host vectors (i.e., mechanical vectors) of parasites. Here, we assessed whether the fecal-orally transmitted gut parasite of bees, Crithidia bombi, can infect Eristalis tenax flower flies. We also investigated the potential for two confirmed solitary bee hosts of C. bombi, Osmia lignaria and Megachile rotundata, as well as two flower fly species, Eristalis arbustorum and E. tenax, to transmit the parasite at flowers. We found that C. bombi did not replicate (i.e., cause an active infection) in E. tenax flies. However, 93% of inoculated flies defecated live C. bombi in their first fecal event, and all contaminated fecal events contained C. bombi at concentrations sufficient to infect bumble bees. Flies and bees defecated inside the corolla (flower) more frequently than other plant locations, and flies defecated at volumes comparable to or greater than bees. Our results demonstrate that Eristalis flower flies are not hosts of C. bombi, but they may be mechanical vectors of this parasite at flowers. Thus, flower flies may amplify or dilute C. bombi in bee communities, though current theoretical work suggests that unless present in large populations, the effects of mechanical vectors will be smaller than hosts.
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