Fungicide and insecticide exposure adversely impacts bumblebees and pollination services under semi-field conditions

Tamburini, Giovanni; Pereira-Peixoto, Maria-Helena; Borth, Jonas; Lotz, Simon; Wintermantel, Dimitry; Allan, Matthew J.; Dean, Robin; Schwarz, Janine Melanie; Knauer, Anina; Albrecht, Matthias; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2021.106813

Cited by 56 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Semi-field flight cage experiments, where Amistar® was applied to a crop, found effects on full bumble bee colonies ( Bombus terrestris ). Amistar® caused a reduction in average bee weight and a reduction in foraging activity, as our results predict 49 . This demonstrates that the effects observed in our laboratory testing scale up to effects at a field realistic level.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Co-formulant in a commercial fungicide product causes lethal and sub-lethal effects in bumble bees

Straw

Brown

2021

Sci Rep

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Pollinators, particularly wild bees, are suffering declines across the globe, and pesticides are thought to be drivers of these declines. Research into, and regulation of pesticides has focused on the active ingredients, and their impact on bee health. In contrast, the additional components in pesticide formulations have been overlooked as potential threats. By testing an acute oral dose of the fungicide product Amistar, and equivalent doses of each individual co-formulant, we were able to measure the toxicity of the formulation and identify the ingredient responsible. We found that a co-formulant, alcohol ethoxylates, caused a range of damage to bumble bee health. Exposure to alcohol ethoxylates caused 30% mortality and a range of sublethal effects. Alcohol ethoxylates treated bees consumed half as much sucrose as negative control bees over the course of the experiment and lost weight. Alcohol ethoxylates treated bees had significant melanisation of their midguts, evidence of gut damage. We suggest that this gut damage explains the reduction in appetite, weight loss and mortality, with bees dying from energy depletion. Our results demonstrate that sublethal impacts of pesticide formulations need to be considered during regulatory consideration, and that co-formulants can be more toxic than active ingredients.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Co-formulant in a commercial fungicide product causes lethal and sub-lethal effects in bumble bees

Straw

Brown

2021

Sci Rep

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“…Additionally, sulfoxaflor was shown to reduce reproduction 59 – 61 (but not learning 62 , 63 ) in bumble bees under field-realistic laboratory settings. When applied pre-flowering in a semi-field study design, sulfoxaflor impacted colony growth, colony size and foraging in bumble bees 64 but not honey bees 65 . Azoxystrobin is a broad-spectrum, systemic fungicide, which has been widely used in agriculture since its first marketing authorisation in 1996 66 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra-specific variation in sensitivity of Bombus terrestris and Osmia bicornis to three pesticides

Linguadoca

Jürison²,

Hellström³

et al. 2022

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There is growing evidence that pesticides may be among the causes of worldwide bee declines, which has resulted in repeated calls for their increased scrutiny in regulatory assessments. One recurring concern is that the current frameworks may be biased towards assessing risks to the honey bee. This paradigm requires extrapolating toxicity information across bee species. Most research effort has therefore focused on quantifying differences in sensitivity across species. However, our understanding of how responses to pesticides may vary within a species is still very poor. Here we take the first steps towards filling this knowledge gap by comparing acute, lethal hazards in sexes and castes of the eusocial bee Bombus terrestris and in sexes of the solitary bee Osmia bicornis after oral and contact exposure to the pesticides sulfoxaflor, Amistar (azoxystrobin) and glyphosate. We show that sensitivity towards pesticides varies significantly both within and across species. Bee weight was a meaningful predictor of pesticide susceptibility. However, weight could not fully explain the observed differences, which suggests the existence of unexplored mechanisms regulating pesticide sensitivity across bee sexes and castes. Our data show that intra-specific responses are an overlooked yet important aspect of the risk assessment of pesticides in bees.

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“…Such experiments ideally combine advantages such as field-realistic exposure routes and levels, long-term assessments and include measures of fitness and population growth with those of a high level of control of influencing factors e.g. by using caged wild bee populations or colonies (e.g., Strobl et al, 2021a ; Strobl et al, 2021b ; Tamburini et al, 2021 ). Last but not least, risks of pathogen spread, at least for some pathogen groups, can be minimized in semi-field experiments conducted with caged wild bees (e.g., Bramke et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do pesticide and pathogen interactions drive wild bee declines?

Straub

Strobl

Yañez

et al. 2022

International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife

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Fungicide and insecticide exposure adversely impacts bumblebees and pollination services under semi-field conditions

Cited by 56 publications

References 46 publications

Co-formulant in a commercial fungicide product causes lethal and sub-lethal effects in bumble bees

Co-formulant in a commercial fungicide product causes lethal and sub-lethal effects in bumble bees

Intra-specific variation in sensitivity of Bombus terrestris and Osmia bicornis to three pesticides

Do pesticide and pathogen interactions drive wild bee declines?

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