Neonicotinoids in bees: a review on concentrations, side-effects and risk assessment

By T. Blacquière, G. Smagghe, C. V. van Gestel, V. Mommaerts. Ecotoxicology, 2012

977 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Neonicotinoid insecticides are successfully applied to control pests in a variety of agricultural crops; however, they may not only affect pest insects but also non-target organisms such as pollinators. This review summarizes, for the first time, 15 years of research on the hazards of neonicotinoids to bees including honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees. The focus of the paper is on three different key aspects determining the risks of neonicotinoid field concentrations for bee populations: (1) the environmental neonicotinoid residue levels in plants, bees and bee products in relation to pesticide application, (2) the reported side-effects with special attention for sublethal effects, and (3) the usefulness for the evaluation of neonicotinoids of an already existing risk assessment scheme for systemic compounds. Although environmental residue levels of neonicotinoids were found to be lower than acute/chronic toxicity levels, there is still a lack of reliable data as most analyses were conducted near the detection limit and for only few crops. Many laboratory studies described lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids on the foraging behavior, and learning and memory abilities of bees, while no effects were observed in field studies at field-realistic dosages. The proposed risk assessment scheme for systemic compounds was shown to be applicable to assess the risk for side-effects of neonicotinoids as it considers the effect on different life stages and different levels of biological organization (organism versus colony). Future research studies should be conducted with field-realistic concentrations, relevant exposure and evaluation durations. Molecular markers may be used to improve risk assessment by a better understanding of the mode of action (interaction with receptors) of neonicotinoids in bees leading to the identification of environmentally safer compounds.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4aa20bdb573534f8681a36bb8e73db88a6cc3496

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Citations in the corpus

Neonicotinoid clothianidin adversely affects insect immunity and promotes replication of a viral pathogen in honey bees (2013, background): “1 to 10 ppb, thus matching contamination levels occurring under field conditions (13, 50, 51).”
The dose makes the poison: have “field realistic” rates of exposure of bees to neonicotinoid insecticides been overestimated in laboratory studies? (2014, background): “Recent laboratory based studies have demonstrated adverse sub-lethal effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on honey bees and bumble bees, and these studies have been influential in leading to a European Union moratorium on the use of three neonicotinoids, clothianidin, imidacloprid, and…”
Understanding the Effects of Sublethal Pesticide Exposure on Honey Bees: A Role for Probiotics as Mediators of Environmental Stress (2020, background): “, 2006), but contribute to the production of roughly a third (∼35%) of the global food supply (Blacquière et al., 2012).”
Sublethal neonicotinoid insecticide exposure reduces solitary bee reproductive success (2014, methodology): “Yet, regarding the present dimensions of systemic neonicotinoid applications (Blacquière et al., 2012), at some point, recurrent fitness losses in agricultural landscapes may fail to be compensated by functional metapopulation networks facing additional adverse conditions such as habitat…”
Combined pesticide exposure severely affects individual- and colony-level traits in bees (2012, methodology): “Overall, we collected data from 259 recognised foragers from 32 colonies (n colonies: Control=7; I=10; LC=8; M=7) making 8751 foraging bouts (median (inter-quartile range) per worker=23(10-44); for criteria used to classify foragers and foraging bouts see Methods).”
Neonicotinoids, bee disorders and the sustainability of pollinator services (2013, neutral): “In a US wide survey of pesticide residues in beeswax, pollen and honeybees during the 2007–2008 growing seasons, high levels of neonicotinoids were found in pollen (included in [92]) but imidacloprid was also found up to 13.”
Pesticide Residues and Bees – A Risk Assessment (2014, background): “Among the pesticides, newly developed systemic insecticides such as fipronil and neonicotinoids have been targeted as the main culprits involved in the collapses since they were launched to the market in the mid1990s [20,21,22,23].”
Toxicity of neonicotinoid insecticides on different honey bee genotypes (2013, background): “…when results of toxicity tests on honey bees performed by different laboratories are compared (DoucetPersoneni et al., 2003; Aupinel et al., 2009; Blacquière et al., 2012; Simon-Delso et al., 2012) and when different honey bee subspecies or even colonies of a single subspecies are tested in the…”
Toxicity and biochemical changes in the honey bee Apis mellifera exposed to four insecticides under laboratory conditions (2015, background): “…impact that broad-spectrum insecticides have on non-target beneficial insects is widely known to be a major cause of pollinator decline in cultivated areas (Blacquiere et al. 2012; Costa et al. 2014; Decourtye et al. 2004; Desneux et al. 2007; Johnson et al. 2010; VanEngelsdorp and Meixner 2010).”
Biotic and Abiotic Factors Associated with Colonies Mortalities of Managed Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) (2019, background): “From the dawn of this millennium, a broad debate has started within the scientific community, giving rise to a number of research programs on the negative impact of neonicotinoid pesticides on pollinating insects, in particular, the managed honey bee or otherwise exploited wild bee colonies [3,38,94”