Recent scholarship in the Uncapping/Recapping realm with a foray into MNR, SMR and Brood Effects:



https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-49688-9

 

A handful of take-aways:


... recapping activity in fertile cells was most frequent in brood ages in which mite offspring would be expected. Our results suggest that mite offspring is the main target of recapping.

... the occurrence of infertile mites did not differ between recapped and untouched cells throughout all sampling points...

Comparing all days, it [initial uncapping] was lowest at day two post capping (p < 0.005, each) and most frequently found six days post capping...

Recapping mainly occurred after the first Varroa offspring should have hatched in fertile cells, i.e., four and six days post capping for male and female eggs, respectively.

At the colony level, high rates of REC were found to decrease Varroa reproduction in some cases, while this could not be confirmed in others. At the cell level, the results were likewise variable: effects on MNR were mainly shown for artificially uncapped cells, while either no effect was found in naturally recapped cells or results differed between sample sets. Thus, it was proposed that the effect of REC may sometimes be overshadowed by other mechanisms. This would also explain contradicting reports on the relationship between REC and infestation measures at the colony level.

Our results prove that recapping behaviour of the host and mite reproduction are subject to considerable seasonal variation. Despite this overall variation at the seasonal level, the parasite's reproductive success was constantly decreased in recapped cells. In this, increased shares of delayed reproduction and missing males were linked to REC at the cell level. REC thus holds the potential as a stand-alone resistance trait but seems to add up to other mechanisms causing infertility and overall seasonal variation.

 

 


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