Effects of exposure to winter oilseed rape grown from thiamethoxam‐treated seed on the red mason bee Osmia bicornis

Abstract

There has been increasing interest in the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on wild bees. In solitary bee species the direct link between each individual female and reproductive success offers the opportunity to evaluate effects on individuals. The present study investigated effects of exposure to winter oilseed rape grown from thiamethoxam-treated seed on reproductive behavior and output of solitary red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) released in 6 pairs of fields over a 2-yr period and confined to tunnels in a single year. After adjustment to the number of females released, there was significantly lower production of cells and cocoons/female in tunnels than in open field conditions. This difference may be because of the lack of alternative forage within the tunnels. Under open field conditions, palynology of the pollen provisions within the nests demonstrated a maximum average of 31% oilseed rape pollen at any site, with Quercus (oak) contributing up to 86% of the pollen. There were no significant effects from exposure to oilseed rape grown from thiamethoxam-treated seed from nest establishment through cell production to emergence under tunnel or field conditions. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:1071-1083. © 2017 SETAC.

A systematic scoping review of the methodological approaches and effects of pesticide exposure on solitary bees

“…The typical approach applied to evaluating the effects of pesticides on brood development involves contaminating the nest provision and monitoring progression to the point of spinning a cocoon as an indicator of larval survival. This type of assessment has been performed for insecticide classes including benzoylphenyl ureas [51], carbamates [52,53], neonicotinoids [54][55][56][57][58][59], organophosphates [60], pyrethroids [61,62], as well as benzimidazoles [63], phthalimide, triazole and dicarboximide [64] fungicides. Using this approach, the acute topical LD 50 for M. rotundata eggs and second/ third instars treated with aldicarb, aldicarb sulfoxide or aldicarb sulfone ranged from 1,619-5,180 μg/g and 1,692-3,549 μg/g, respectively [53].…”

“…Foraging and nesting activity. Sublethal effects of single compound insecticide exposure on foraging activity [57,[68][69][70], flight [57,[71][72][73][74], and food consumption by adults [75][76][77] have received some research attention. Investigations focusing on aspects of nesting activity including the number of nesting bees [60,78], number of brood cells produced [51,52,57,60,62,69,74,[78][79][80], number of nests/female [45,57,70], and the number of days spent nesting have been published.…”

Domestic Gardens Mitigate Risk of Exposure of Pollinators to Pesticides—An Urban-Rural Case Study Using a Red Mason Bee Species for Biomonitoring

“…In this study we used a red mason bee species, Osmia bicornis (Linnaeus, 1758), for monitoring the rates of exposure to pesticides from forage sources. This species has already been used for monitoring the rates of exposures to pesticide in oilseed rape fields [42,45,46,[56][57][58][59] and for laboratory testing of sublethal effects of insecticides on bee survival [41,47,48,60]. It is a food generalist, which feeds preferentially on pollen from oak (Quercus sp.…”

Results of 2‐Year Ring Testing of a Semifield Study Design to Investigate Potential Impacts of Plant Protection Products on the Solitary Bees Osmia Bicornis and Osmia Cornuta and a Proposal for a Suitable Test Design

“…In terms of higher tier studies with solitary nesting bee species (i.e., semifield and field tests) reports of using Osmia lignaria (Say, 1837), O. bicornis, Megachile rotundata (Fabricius, 1784; Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), and Nomia melanderi (Cockerell, 1906; Hymenoptera: Halictidae) are available in the literature (Torchio 1983; Mayer et al 1998; Alston et al 2007; Abbott et al 2008; Ladurner et al 2008; Hodgson et al 2011; Artz and Pitts‐Singer 2015; Rundlöf et al 2015; Peters et al 2016; Ruddle et al 2018). All 4 species are bred and managed commercially for pollination services (Sgolastra et al 2018).…”