Sublethal doses of insecticide reduce thermal tolerance of a stingless bee and are not avoided in a resource choice test

Farnan, Holly, Yeeles, Peter, and Lach, Lori (2023) Sublethal doses of insecticide reduce thermal tolerance of a stingless bee and are not avoided in a resource choice test. Royal Society Open Science, 10 (11). 230949.

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Abstract

Insecticides and climate change are among the multiple stressors that bees face, but little is known about their synergistic effects, especially for non-Apis bee species. In laboratory experiments, we tested whether the stingless bee Tetragonula hockingsi avoids insecticide in sucrose solutions and how T. hockingsi responds to insecticide and heat stress combined. We found that T. hockingsi neither preferred nor avoided sucrose solutions with either low (2.5 × 10−4 ng µl−1 imidacloprid or 1.0 × 10−4 ng µl−1 fipronil) or high (2.5 × 10−3 ng µl−1 imidacloprid or 1.0 × 10−3 ng µl−1 fipronil) insecticide concentrations when offered alongside sucrose without insecticide. In our combined stress experiment, the smallest dose of imidacloprid (7.5 × 10−4 ng) did not significantly affect thermal tolerance (CTmax). However, CTmax significantly reduced by 0.8°C (±0.16 SE) and by 0.5°C (±0.16 SE) when bees were fed as little as 7.5 × 10−3 ng of imidacloprid or 3.0 × 10−4 ng of fipronil, respectively, and as much as 1.5°C (±0.16 SE) and 1.2°C (±0.16 SE) when bees were fed 7.5 × 10−2 ng of imidacloprid or 3.0 × 10−2 ng of fipronil, respectively. Predictions of temperature increase, and increased insecticide use in the tropics suggest that T. hockingsi will be at increased risk of the effects of both stressors in the future.

Item ID: 81268
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2054-5703
Copyright Information: © 2023 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Date Deposited: 04 Dec 2023 22:50
FoR Codes: 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4101 Climate change impacts and adaptation > 410102 Ecological impacts of climate change and ecological adaptation @ 20%
41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4102 Ecological applications > 410201 Bioavailability and ecotoxicology @ 20%
41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410401 Conservation and biodiversity @ 60%
SEO Codes: 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180606 Terrestrial biodiversity @ 60%
19 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL HAZARDS > 1999 Other environmental policy, climate change and natural hazards > 199999 Other environmental policy, climate change and natural hazards not elsewhere classified @ 10%
18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180603 Evaluation, allocation, and impacts of land use @ 30%
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