DOI: 10.5061/dryad.zpc866t7g
title: Data from: Pollinator community species richness dilutes prevalence of multiple viruses within multiple host species

description: Most pathogens are embedded in complex communities composed of multiple
 interacting hosts, but we are still learning how community-level factors,
 such as host diversity, abundance, and composition, contribute to pathogen
 spread for many host–pathogen systems. Evaluating relationships among
 multiple pathogens and hosts may clarify whether particular host or
 pathogen traits consistently drive links between community factors and
 pathogen prevalence. Pollinators are a good system to test how community
 composition influences pathogen spread because pollinator communities are
 extremely variable and contain several multi-host pathogens transmitted on
 shared floral resources. We conducted a field survey of four pollinator
 species to test the prevalence of three RNA viruses (deformed wing virus,
 black queen cell virus, and sacbrood virus) among pollinator communities
 with variable species richness, abundance, and composition. All three
 viruses showed a similar pattern of prevalence among hosts. Apis mellifera
 and Bombus impatiens had significantly higher viral prevalence than
 Lasioglossum spp. and Eucera pruinosa. In each species, lower virus
 prevalence was most strongly linked with greater pollinator community
 species richness. In contrast, pollinator abundance, species-specific
 pollinator abundance, and community composition were not associated with
 virus prevalence. Our results support a consistent dilution effect for
 multiple viruses and host species. Pollinators in species-rich communities
 had lower viral prevalence than pollinators from species-poor communities,
 when accounting for differences in pollinator abundance. Species-rich
 communities likely had lower viral prevalence because species-rich
 communities contained more native bee species likely to be poor viral
 hosts than species poor communities, and all communities contained the
 highly competent hosts A. mellifera and B. impatiens. Interestingly, the
 strength of the dilution effect was not consistent among hosts. Instead,
 host species with low viral prevalence exhibited weaker dilution effects
 compared to hosts with high viral prevalence. Therefore, host species
 susceptibility and competence for each virus may contribute to variation
 in the strength of dilution effects. This study expands
 biodiversity–disease studies to the pollinator–virus system, finding
 consistent evidence of the dilution effect among multiple similar
 pathogens that infect ‘replicate’ host communities.
description: Field collected data examining the impact of community diversity,
 abundance, and composition on prevalence in a natural
 multihost-multipathogen system. This data uses pollinator communities that
 vary in diveristy and abundance to evaluate changes in deformed wing
 virus, black queen cell virus, and sacbrood virus prevalence within four
 focal host species, <em>Apis mellifera</em>, <em>Bombus
 impatiens</em>, <em>Lasioglossum </em>spp. and
 <em>Eucera pruinosa</em>. All pollinator communities were
 sampled from winter squash farms with variable surrounding
 habitats.