Vespula vulgaris virus discovery

Wasps of the genus Vespula are invasive social insects that have become major pests and preda-tors in their introduced range. Viruses present in these wasps have been studied in the context of spill-over from honey bees, yet we lack an understanding of the endogenous virome of wasps as potential reservoirs of novel emerging infectious diseases. We describe the characterization of 68 novel and 9 previously identified virus sequences found in transcriptomes of Vespula vulgaris in colonies sampled from the native range (Belgium) and the invasive range (New Zealand).