Sulfoxaflor insecticide and azoxystrobin fungicide have no major impact on honeybees in a realistic-exposure semi-field experiment

Tamburini, Giovanni; Wintermantel, Dimitry; Allan, Matthew J.; Dean, Robin; Knauer, Anina; Albrecht, Matthias; Klein, Alexandra‐Maria

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146084

Cited by 29 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…This demonstrates that the effects observed in our laboratory testing scale up to effects at a field realistic level. Additionally, in honeybees ( Apis mellifera ) Amistar® has been found to cause mortality in laboratory experiments at a range of doses 50 , 51 , demonstrating the mortality effect found in our experiment is not species specific. However, no mortality was seen in trials on the red mason bee Osmia bicornis (Hellström and Paxton, unpublished data).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 52%

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: 52%

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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“…In this study, Sulfoxaflor had the effect of increasing the time necessary for a bee to land in a flower (Boff et al, 2021). Further studies, with honey bees (Tamburini et al, 2021b) and bumble bees (Tamburini et al, 2021a), showed that Sulfoxaflor may have species-specific effects, supporting previous reports of different bee species having different responses when exposed to the same pesticide (Cresswell et al, 2012;Arena and Sgolastra, 2014;Mayack and Boff, 2019;Azpiazu et al, 2021;Schmolke et al, 2021). A negative effect of Sulfoxaflor on non-commercial bumble bee colony development was suggested by the impact on reproductive output by lowering larvae (Linguadoca et al, 2021) and male production (Siviter et al, 2018), but did not appear to affect foraging and weight of pollen loads of workers (Siviter et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Decreased efficiency of pollen collection due to Sulfoxaflor exposure leads to a reduction in the size of bumble bee workers in late European summer

et al. 2022

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Bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) are important pollinators of wild and crop plants. Despite their importance in the process of fruit and seed production on crop sites, their activity may be impaired due to exposure to pesticides. This species has a yearly life cycle and colony success may rely on effective foraging of workers on ruderal plants late in summer when most crops are no longer flowering. In the current study, we investigated the effect of chronic exposure to Sulfoxaflor on aspects of the foraging behavior of bumble bees and whether Sulfoxaflor influences the body size of workers of B. terrestris in a crop landscape. We found that 2 weeks of continuous exposure to Sulfoxaflor influenced workers’ foraging dynamics and collection of resources. However, there was no evidence that the 5 ppb dose of the pesticide impacted the ability of bees to handle flowers with different traits. Workers from colonies exposed to Sulfoxaflor were smaller. The effect on worker size may be explained as a consequence of the reduced pollen income per unit of worker foraging. Thus, if the effects of Sulfoxaflor applied directly to crops had the same effect as that observed on commercial bumble bees after our chronic exposure, it might negatively impact colony success due to the impact on pollen collection and the reduction in the size of workers.

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“…Additionally, as shown in the ECD we demonstrated that exposure levels in the field may exceed those tested in our experiment, if farmers do not implement in-bloom mitigation measures while spraying sulfoxaflor. While in Europe, for instance, it is recommended that sulfoxaflor-based applications are stopped five days before flowering of the crop to reduce exposure peaks, such restrictionswhose effectiveness for non-Apis bees is yet to be demonstrated (Azpiazu et al, 2021;Tamburini et al, 2021) -are often deemed impractical outside the EU, (e.g., for crops with indeterminate bloom, like pumpkin and strawberry in the USA). One of the arguments for the safety of such unrestricted use is the quick degradation of sulfoxaflor in pollen and nectar (EPA, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sulfoxaflor and nutritional deficiency synergistically reduce survival and fecundity in bumblebees

Linguadoca

Rizzi

Villa

et al. 2021

Science of The Total Environment

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Sulfoxaflor insecticide and azoxystrobin fungicide have no major impact on honeybees in a realistic-exposure semi-field experiment

Cited by 29 publications

References 65 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

Decreased efficiency of pollen collection due to Sulfoxaflor exposure leads to a reduction in the size of bumble bee workers in late European summer

Sulfoxaflor and nutritional deficiency synergistically reduce survival and fecundity in bumblebees

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