Pesticide affects social behavior of bees

Neonicotinoid exposure impairs the social dynamics of bumblebees inside the nest Bees are critically important to agricultural crop production and to the reproduction of most flowering plant species on the planet (1). Yet, these essential ecosystem service providers are in decline around the world (1, 2). Widespread pesticide use associated with increasingly intensive agriculture is one of several, likely interacting, factors that contribute to these concerning pollinator declines (2). Although insecticide applications are targeted at controlling pests, their use can have unintended impacts on beneficial insects, including bees. As the most widely used class of insecticides in the world, neonicotinoids have come under considerable scrutiny following concerns around their nontarget impacts on bees (3). On page 683 of this issue, Crall et al. (4) identify how exposure to these neurotoxic insecticides can adversely affect individual bumblebees and social dynamics within their colony.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Science

• Publication date

  2018-11-09

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1126/science.aav5273PMID 30409873
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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