While ectoparasitic Varroa mites cause minimal damage to their co-evolved ancestral host, the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana), they devastate their novel host, the western honey bee (Apis mellifera). Over several decades, the host switch caused worldwide population collapses, threatening global food security. Varroa management strategies have focused on breeding bees for tolerance. But, can Varroa overcome these counter-adaptations in a classic coevolutionary arms race? Despite increasing evidence for Varroa genetic diversity and evolvability, this eventuality has largely been neglected. We therefore suggest a more holistic paradigm for studying this host-parasite interaction, one in which ‘Varroa-tolerant’ bee traits should be viewed as a shared phenotype resulting from Varroa and honey bee interaction.

外寄生性螨虫对它们共同进化的祖先寄主东方蜜蜂（Apis cerana）造成的损害最小，而它们却破坏了其新寄主西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）。几十年来，东道主的转变导致全球人口崩溃，威胁着全球粮食安全。Varroa的管理策略集中于繁殖蜜蜂以提高耐受性。但是，瓦尔罗亚（Varroa）是否可以克服经典的协同进化军备竞赛中的这些反适应？尽管有越来越多的Varroa证据由于遗传多样性和进化性，这种可能性在很大程度上被忽略了。因此，我们建议对于研究这一宿主-寄生虫的相互作用，其中一个“更全面的范例瓦-tolerant”蜂特征应该被视为从产生的共享表型的瓦和蜜蜂互动。