Ten Years of Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) in Hawaiian Honey Bees (), the Dominant DWV-A Variant Is Potentially Being Replaced by Variants with a DWV-B Coding Sequence.

Abstract

The combination of Deformed wing virus (DWV) and is arguably one of the greatest threats currently facing western honey bees,.s association with DWV has decreased viral diversity and increased loads of DWV within honey bee populations. Nowhere has this been better studied than in Hawaii, where the arrival ofprogressively led to the dominance of the single master variant (DWV-A) on both mite-infested Hawaiian Islands of Oahu and Big Island. Now, exactly 10 years following the original study, we find that the DWV population has changed once again, with variants containing thecoding sequence pertaining to the master variant B beginning to co-dominate alongside variants with the DWV-Asequence on the mite-infested islands of Oahu and Big Island. In speculation, based on other studies, it appears this could represent a stage in the journey towards the complete dominance of DWV-B, a variant that appears better adapted to be transmitted within honey bee colonies.