05 June, 2019

Variation in pollinator potential to carry a blueberry fungal pathogen and assessment of transfer efficiency in two managed bee species



by Matthew D. H. Boyer and Lynn S. Adler



Andrena bee visiting a blueberry flower.
Photo credit: Scott McArt
Many crops need pollinators to produce fruits or seeds. However, pollinators can also carry some diseases that infect crops when they come in contact with flowers. Highbush blueberry, is an economically important crop whose yield can be reduced up to 80% by mummyberry disease, which is vectored to flowers by pollinators.  This creates a challenge for management since pollinators are needed to maximize yield but also vector a highly damaged disease. We collected floral visitors to blueberry plants and used molecular techniques to identify the visitors and measure how many pathogen spores were carried by each visiting species.

Read the whole summary in: English!
Read the scientific publication in JPE.