| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,420,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,020,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2018: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Sphaerularia bombi Dufour is a major parasite of bumble bee queens that manipulates its host’s behavior: parasitized queens do not breed and found nests but continue to fly into the early summer months. To understand the relationships between Sphaerularia nematodes and their host, Bumble bees, we observed the behavior of the parasitized queens of bumble bees and analyzed metapopulation genetic structure of both the hosts and the parasites. Our major findings are as follows. (1) Sphaerularia nematodes contains several cryptic species. (2) Host-specificity of each cryptic species would be very low. (3) Cross-species parasite transmission between host species likely have occurred but its frequency would be very small. (4) exotic lineages of the nematodes would not have invaded in Japan. (5) Dispersal of Bumble bee queens would highly be restricted by host manipulation by Sphaerularia nematodes.
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