Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids reduces honey bee health near corn crops

Tsvetkov, Nadejda; Samson-Robert, Olivier; Sood, Kritika; Patel, H. S.; Malena, D. A.; Gajiwala, P. H.; Maciukiewicz, P.; Fournier, Valérie; Zayed, Amro

doi:10.1126/science.aam7470

Cited by 407 publications

(310 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

301

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Bees with increasing amounts of clothianidin had decreasing amounts of glycogen, lipids and protein. Tsvetkov et al (2017) measured long-term exposure (2 summers) to neonicotinoids in Canadian corn areas and matched their laboratory exposure parameters to this data. They found an association between field-realistic exposure to clothianidin and thiamethoxam and decreased colony immunity and survival.…”

Section: Field Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

Pisa

Goulson

Yang

et al. 2017

Environ Sci Pollut Res

177

144

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the previous Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) in 2015. The high toxicity of these systemic insecticides to invertebrates has been confirmed and expanded to include more species and compounds. Most of the recent research has focused on bees and the sublethal and ecological impacts these insecticides have on pollinators. Toxic effects on other invertebrate taxa also covered predatory and parasitoid natural enemies and aquatic arthropods. Little new information has been gathered on soil organisms. The impact on marine and coastal ecosystems is still largely uncharted. The chronic lethality of neonicotinoids to insects and crustaceans, and the strengthened evidence that these chemicals also impair the immune system and reproduction, highlights the dangers of this particular insecticidal class (neonicotinoids and fipronil), with the potential to greatly decrease populations of arthropods in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Sublethal effects on fish, reptiles, frogs, birds, and mammals are also reported, showing a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity of these insecticides in vertebrates and their deleterious impacts on growth, reproduction, and neurobehaviour of most of the species tested. This review concludes with a summary of impacts on the ecosystem services and functioning, particularly on pollination, soil biota, and aquatic invertebrate communities, thus reinforcing the previous WIA conclusions .

show abstract

Section: Field Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

Pisa

Goulson

Yang

et al. 2017

Environ Sci Pollut Res

177

144

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To study the effects of individual and interacting stressors on the complex biological processes that occur within a honey bee colony, many researchers conduct field experiments with full size colonies or experimental colonies that have reduced populations or demographies [7–11]. These experiments produce environmentally relevant data pertaining to colony-level effects, but their designs are often time- and resource-intensive, with challenges in controlling for variables such as the effects of agrochemical residues persisting in wax comb [12] and in the surrounding foraging landscapes [13], the sources of nutrition available to the colony [14,15], bee genetic variation [16,17], exposure to new or worsening pathogen infections [11], and queen failure events [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the effects of pollen nutrition on honey bee queen egg laying with a new laboratory system

Fine¹,

Ray²,

Beach³

et al. 2018

PLoS ONE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Honey bee populations have been declining precipitously over the past decade, and multiple causative factors have been identified. Recent research indicates that these frequently co-occurring stressors interact, often in unpredictable ways, therefore it has become important to develop robust methods to assess their effects both in isolation and in combination. Most such efforts focus on honey bee workers, but the state of a colony also depends on the health and productivity of its queen. However, it is much more difficult to quantify the performance of queens relative to workers in the field, and there are no laboratory assays for queen performance. Here, we present a new system to monitor honey bee queen egg laying under laboratory conditions and report the results of experiments showing the effects of pollen nutrition on egg laying. These findings suggest that queen egg laying and worker physiology can be manipulated in this system through pollen nutrition, which is consistent with findings from field colonies. The results generated using this controlled, laboratory-based system suggest that worker physiology controls queen egg laying behavior. Additionally, the quantitative data generated in these experiments highlight the utility of the system for further use as a risk assessment tool.

show abstract

“…The damage at colony level includes lower reproductive capacity and increased colony mortality (Genersch et al 2010, Rosenkranz et al 2010, Van Dooremalen et al 2012, Nazzi and Le Conte 2016. The roles of neonicotinoid insecticides (Blacqui ere et al 2012, Godfray et al 2015, Tsvetkov et al 2017, Woodcock et al 2017 or the endoparasite Nosema ceranae (Fries et al 2013, Goblirsch 2018 in causing high colony losses remain debated. Recent studies show it is unlikely that field-realistic, sublethal doses of neonicotinoid insecticides (Dively et al 2015, Rundl€ of et al 2015, Woodcock et al 2017 or infestations with N. ceranae (Fern andez et al 2012, Van der Zee et al 2015) are the sole cause of colony losses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Single and interactive effects of Varroa destructor, Nosema spp., and imidacloprid on honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera)

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Citation: van Dooremalen, C., B. Cornelissen, C. Poleij-Hok-Ahin, and T. Blacqui ere. 2018. Single and interactive effects of Varroa destructor, Nosema spp., and imidacloprid on honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera). Ecosphere 9(8):Abstract. High losses of honey bee colonies in recent decades are of great societal and economical concern and experienced as a sign of the vulnerability of the environment, including the service of crop pollination, and of the beekeeping sector. There is no single cause for the colony losses, but many contributing stressors may act in concert. Varroa destructor infestation is acknowledged as an important cause of these losses. The roles of infestation by Nosema ceranae or exposure to insecticides are controversial. Interactions between exposure to pesticides and V. destructor or Nosema spp. have previously been implicated. In two years of field experiments, we studied the effects of and possible interactions between the stressors V. destructor infestation, Nosema spp. infestation, and chronic sublethal exposure to a field-realistic dose of the insecticide imidacloprid on the performance and survival of honey bee colonies. Colonies highly infested by V. destructor were 13% smaller in size and were 59.1 times more likely to die than colonies infested with low levels of V. destructor. Infestation with high levels of Nosema sp. led to 2% decrease in size and 1.4 times higher likelihood to die compared to colonies with low levels of Nosema sp. No effects of chronic sublethal exposure to imidacloprid on colony size or survival were found in this study. Exposure to V. destructor and imidacloprid led to a slightly higher fraction of bees infested with Nosema sp., but in contrast to the expectations, no resulting interactions were found for colony size or survival. Colonies as a superorganism may well be able to compensate at the colony level for sublethal negative effects of stressors on their individuals. In our experimental study under field-realistic exposure to stressors, V. destructor was by far the most lethal one for honey bee colonies.

show abstract

Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids reduces honey bee health near corn crops

Cited by 407 publications

References 38 publications

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems

Quantifying the effects of pollen nutrition on honey bee queen egg laying with a new laboratory system

Single and interactive effects of Varroa destructor, Nosema spp., and imidacloprid on honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About