UC Santa Barbara

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) can be exposed via numerous potential pathways to ambient nanoparticles (NPs), including rare earth oxide (REO) NPs that are increasingly used and released into the environment. Gut microorganisms are pivotal in mediating honeybee health, but how REO NPs may affect honeybee health and gut microbiota remains poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, honeybees were fed pollen and sucrose syrup containing 0, 1, 10, 100, and 1000mgkg^-1 of nano-La₂O₃ for 12days. Nano-La₂O₃ exerted detrimental effects on honeybee physiology, as reflected by dose-dependent adverse effects of nano-La₂O₃ on survival, pollen consumption, and body weight (p<0.05). Nano-La₂O₃ caused the dysbiosis of honeybee gut bacterial communities, as evidenced by the change of gut bacterial community composition, the enrichment of pathogenic Serratia and Frischella, and the alteration of digestion-related taxa Bombella (p<0.05). There were significant correlations between honeybee physiological parameters and the relative abundances of pathogenic Serratia and Frischella (p<0.05), underscoring linkages between honeybee health and gut bacterial communities. Taken together, this study demonstrates that nano-La₂O₃ can cause detrimental effects on honeybee health, potentially by disordering gut bacterial communities. This study thus reveals a previously overlooked effect of nano-La₂O₃ on the ecologically and economically important honeybee species Apis mellifera.