Studies of Ascosphaera apis strains isolated from commercial pollens of different Spanish provinces and their enzymatic production capacity

TEJERINA, MARCOS; CABANA, MARIA; FLORES JUAN; BENITEZ-AHRENDTS MARCELO

ARCHIVOS DE ZOOTECNIA

Universidad de Cordoba

Lugar: Córdoba; Año: 2019 vol. 68 p. 324 - 330

0004-0592

Ascosphaera apis is a pathogenicfungus of Apismellifera bees larvaethat causes the disease chalkbrood, which causes serious damage to hives, causing serious economic losses. The disease is usually recurrent during the rainy season and low temperatures, but there are also other factorsthat  predispose the colony to become ill, such as lack of protein reserves, poor ventilation inside thehive  and weak hives, especially in those where there is not anadequate use of antimicrobials., In this work six strains of the commercial pollen fungus were isolated from four Spanish provinces, which    were conserved for 48 months, they were identified genetically using the ITS (internal transcription space) regions coding for rRNA5.8S. In order to verify its viability, it was performed an in vitro enzymatic screening of the secretion capacity of products and proteases in conventional media, all strainswere found to be viable at 30°C and under microaerophilicconditions, it was also shown that the strains are related phylogenetically,far from other countries, which would be showing that the spores are transported among Spanish provinces. This work brings an approximation to the viability  of A. apis fungus spores in commercial pollens, to extend sanitary measures and to control the pollen used in the feeding of beehives when it isscarce.