Pesticide Residues and Bees – A Risk Assessment

By F. Sánchez‐Bayo, K. Goka. PLoS ONE, 2014

796 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Bees are essential pollinators of many plants in natural ecosystems and agricultural crops alike. In recent years the decline and disappearance of bee species in the wild and the collapse of honey bee colonies have concerned ecologists and apiculturalists, who search for causes and solutions to this problem. Whilst biological factors such as viral diseases, mite and parasite infections are undoubtedly involved, it is also evident that pesticides applied to agricultural crops have a negative impact on bees. Most risk assessments have focused on direct acute exposure of bees to agrochemicals from spray drift. However, the large number of pesticide residues found in pollen and honey demand a thorough evaluation of all residual compounds so as to identify those of highest risk to bees. Using data from recent residue surveys and toxicity of pesticides to honey and bumble bees, a comprehensive evaluation of risks under current exposure conditions is presented here. Standard risk assessments are complemented with new approaches that take into account time-cumulative effects over time, especially with dietary exposures. Whilst overall risks appear to be low, our analysis indicates that residues of pyrethroid and neonicotinoid insecticides pose the highest risk by contact exposure of bees with contaminated pollen. However, the synergism of ergosterol inhibiting fungicides with those two classes of insecticides results in much higher risks in spite of the low prevalence of their combined residues. Risks by ingestion of contaminated pollen and honey are of some concern for systemic insecticides, particularly imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, chlorpyrifos and the mixtures of cyhalothrin and ergosterol inhibiting fungicides. More attention should be paid to specific residue mixtures that may result in synergistic toxicity to bees.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/70d756f4e4f3ffb567105008ba4a4bfe0ec09013

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Citations in the corpus

Nosema ceranae disease of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) (2018, background): “The amount of any individual pesticide frequently detected in the hive may not be sufficient to cause acute toxicity, but combinations of pesticides and/or their metabolites may have cumulative effects that create synergisms with other stressors such as pathogens, mites, or poor nutrition (Sanchez-B”
Bee declines driven by combined stress from parasites, pesticides, and lack of flowers (2015, background): “Of the 161 different pesticides that have been detected in honey bee colonies (60, 61), Sanchez-Bayo and Goka (61) predicted that three neonicotinoids (thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, and clothianidin) and two organophosphates (phosmet and chlorpyrifos) pose the biggest risk to honey bees at a global sc”
Biotic and Abiotic Factors Associated with Colonies Mortalities of Managed Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) (2019, background): “Bees come in contact with pesticides when drifting (driven by air currents) through spray drift or dusting from an applied product, for example, in proximity to recently sprayed growing plants, when soil is treated or when treated seed is used for sowing [70,71].”
Understanding the Effects of Sublethal Pesticide Exposure on Honey Bees: A Role for Probiotics as Mediators of Environmental Stress (2020, background): “Among them, pesticide exposure (Sanchez-Bayo and Goka, 2014; Zhu et al., 2014), pathogens (Evans and Schwarz, 2011), and habitat loss (Clermont et al.”
Environmental fate and exposure; neonicotinoids and fipronil (2014, methodology): “Rangec (ng/g) Meand or magnitudee,f (ng/g) Maximumf (ng/g) Referenceg Acetamiprid 24.1 1–1,000 3 134 Sanchez-Bayo and Goka (2014) 45 0.1–100 4.1 26.1 Pohorecka et al. (2012) 3.1 10–1,000 59.3 134 Mullin et al. (2010) Clothianidin 11 1–100 9.4 41.2 Sanchez-Bayo and Goka (2014) 0.1–100 0.1h to 17.1h…”
Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers (2019, background): “In terms of toxicity, insecticides are by far the most toxic to all insects and other arthropods, followed by fungicides but not herbicides (Mulé et al., 2017; Sánchez-Bayo and Goka, 2014).”
Effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on non-target invertebrates (2014, positive): “Sanchez-Bayo and Goka (2014) demonstrated that field-realistic residues of neonicotinoid insecticides in pollen pose high risk to honeybees and bumblebees, whilst in the field synergisms with ergosterol inhibiting fungicides will further amplify these risks.”
Impacts of Pesticides on Honey Bees (2016, methodology): “Most of the time, the exposure of bees to pesticides is through ingestion of residues found in the pollen and nectar of contaminated plants, whether from the crop plants or from the weeds around the fields [21].”
Bees and pesticide regulation: Lessons from the neonicotinoid experience (2020, background): “RA procedures should account for the temporal and spatial dimensions of exposure, including delayed mortality and the potential cumulative effects of chronic exposure (Sanchez-Bayo and Goka, 2014; Sánchez-Bayo and Tennekes, 2017).”