title: Comparative toxicity of pesticides and environmental contaminants in bees: Are honey bees a useful proxy for wild bee species?
abstract: Threats to wild and managed insect pollinators in Europe are cause for both ecological and socio-economic concern. Multiple anthropogenic pressures may be exacerbating pollinator declines. One key pressure is exposure to chemicals including pesticides and other contaminants. Historically the honey bee (Apis mellifera spp.) has been used as an 'indicator' species for 'standard' ecotoxicological testing but it has been suggested that it is not always a good proxy for other types of eusocial and solitary bees because of species differences in autecology and sensitivity to various stressors. We developed a common toxicity test system to conduct acute and chronic exposures of up to 240h of similar doses of seven chemicals, targeting different metabolic pathways, on three bee species (Apis mellifera spp., Bombus terrestris and Osmia bicornis). We compared the relative sensitivity between species in terms of potency between the chemicals and the influence of exposure time on toxicity. While there were significant interspecific differences that varied through time, overall the magnitude of these differences (in terms of treatment effect ratios) was generally comparable (<2 fold) although there were some large divergences from this pattern. Our results suggest that A. mellifera spp. could be used as a proxy for other bee species provided a reasonable assessment factor is used to cover interspecific variation. Perhaps more importantly our results show significant and large time dependency of toxicity across all three tested species that greatly exceeds species differences (>25 fold within test). These are rarely considered in standard regulatory testing but may have severe environmental consequences, especially when coupled with the likelihood of differential species exposures in the wild. These insights indicate that further work is required to understand how differences in toxicokinetics vary between species and mixtures of chemicals.
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK. Electronic address: mshe@ceh.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Heard
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Baas
authors.affiliation: European Food Safety Authority, Via Carlo Magno, 1A, 43100 Parma PR, Italy.
authors.forename: Jean-Lou
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Dorne
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.
authors.forename: Elma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lahive
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.
authors.forename: Alexander G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: European Food Safety Authority, Via Carlo Magno, 1A, 43100 Parma PR, Italy.
authors.forename: Agnes
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rortais
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Spurgeon
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.
authors.forename: Claus
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Svendsen
authors.affiliation: NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hesketh
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects*; D054750:Ecotoxicology; D005060:Europe; D010575:Pesticides / Q000633:toxicity*; D013045:Species Specificity; D018675:Toxicity Tests
chemical_list: D010575:Pesticides
keywords: Apis; Bombus; DEBtox; Neonicotinoid; Osmia; Trace metal