Data from: Shared and unique microbes between Small hive beetles (Aethina tumida) and their honey bee hosts

The small hive beetle (SHB) Aethina tumida is an opportunistic parasite that feeds on bee larvae, honey, and pollen. While SHBs can also feed on fruit and other plant products, like its plant‐feeding relatives, SHBs prefer to feed on hive resources and only reproduce inside bee colonies. As parasites, SHBs are inevitably exposed to bee‐associated microbes, either directly from the bees or from the hive environment. These microbes have unknown impacts on beetles, nor is it known how extensively beetles transfer microbes among their bee hosts. To identify sets of beetle microbes and the transmission of microbes from bees to beetles, a metagenomic analysis was performed. We identified sets of herbivore‐associated bacteria, as well as typical bee symbiotic bacteria for pollen digestion, in SHB larvae and adults. Deformed wing virus was highly abundant in beetles, which colonize SHBs as suggested by a controlled feeding trial. Our data suggest SHBs are vectors for pathogen transmission among bees and between colonies. The dispersal of host pathogens by social parasites via floral resources and the hive environment increases the threats of these parasites to honey bees.

DNA and RNA sequencing reads were previously deposited at NCBI‐BioProject PRJNA256171.

Supporting datasets provided in Excel spreadsheets comprise:

• Microbes found from Illumina DNA reads using Kraken
• DNA reads aligned to HoloBee Bar database report
• Adult beetle microbe qPCR results from DNA extraction
• Adult beetle de novo assembled contig_names

• larvae beetle Pacbio_reads

  
  Resources in this dataset:
  
  

  • Resource Title: Website Pointer to Supporting Information.

    File Name: Web Page, url: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mbo3.899#support-information-section

    Unmapped reads were used to screen microbial species with fully sequenced genome assemblies using Kraken with standard databases, which is designed to align short sequencing reads to sequenced microbe genomes. -- Supporting Information S1, Microbes found from Illumina DNA reads using Kraken mbo3899-sup-0001-SupInfoS1.xlsx. application/msexcel, 383.5 KB.

  HoloBee‐Barcode uses a variety of markers as appropriate for each taxonomic group. Complete 16S ribosomal RNA was used for bacteria. -- Supporting Information S2,DNA reads aligned to HoloBee Bar database report mbo3899-sup-0002-SupInfoS2.xlsx. application/msexcel, 21.1 KB.

  Detailed DNA extraction, RNA extraction, and qPCR protocols, along with the primers and results, are described in Supporting Information S3 and S4. Colonization by the fungus K. ohmeri on SHB adults was verified. -- Supporting Information S3, Adult beetle microbe qPCR results from DNA extraction mbo3899-sup-0003-SupInfoS3.xlsx application/msexcel, 52.2 KB.

  The identified microbes show significant hit when blasting the assembled de novo contigs to Embl, Unigene, Est, Gss, Htc, Pat, Refseq, Htg, and Tst databases. -- Supporting Information S4, Adult beetle de novo assembled contig_names; larvae beetle Pacbio_reads mbo3899-sup-0004-SupInfoS4.xlsx application/msexcel, 4.1 MB.