“Our findings. . .serve as a caution against evaluating the toxicity of a particular pesticide based on the findings from a single ‘model’ species such as honeybees or bumblebees.”
June 20, 2017
From: PeerJ | The award-winning biological and medical sciences journal
Larval exposure to field-realistic concentrations of clothianidin has no effect on development rate, over-winter survival or adult metabolic rate in a solitary bee, Osmia bicornis
Elizabeth Nicholls1, Robert Fowler1, Jeremy E. Niven1, James D. Gilbert1,2 and Dave Goulson1
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Here we examined the effect of chronic, larval exposure to neonicotinoids on the development and survival of a solitary bee, Osmia bicornis, under controlled laboratory
conditions. We found that exposure to clothianidin at doses representative of the concentrations detected in field-collected pollen and nectar had no effect on development time or the efficiency with which larvae converted pollen into wet body mass. Overall, developmental mortality was similar between treatment groups (ca. 20%). A higher proportion of control group pupae failed to eclose, which elevated the overall mortality of this group above that of the treatment groups (ca. 30% in total). Once cocoons were placed back into a warmed incubator the following spring, there was no difference between treatment groups in the time to emerge, and adult body weight did not differ between exposed and non-exposed bees. Overall, our findings suggest that larvae of O. bicornis are insensitive to clothianidin exposure up to concentrations of 10 ppb.
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