Life-history stage determines the diet of ectoparasitic mites on their honey bee hosts

Abstract Ectoparasitic mites of the genera Varroa and Tropilaelaps have evolved to exclusively exploit honey bees as food sources during alternating dispersal and reproductive life history stages. Here we show that the primary food source utilized by Varroa destructor depends on the host life histor...

Full description

Bibliographic Details

Published in:	Nature Communications
Main Authors:	Bin Han, Jiangli Wu, Qiaohong Wei, Fengying Liu, Lihong Cui, Olav Rueppell, Shufa Xu
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Nature Portfolio 2024-01-01
Online Access:	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44915-x