University of Koblenz-Landau, Institute for Environmental Sciences, Landau, Germany.
PLoS One. 2019 Aug 8;14(8):e0201081. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0201081. eCollection 2019.
Bees provide essential ecosystem services and help maintain floral biodiversity. However, there is an ongoing decline of wild and domesticated bee species. Since agricultural pesticide use is a key driver of this process, there is a need for a protective risk assessment. To achieve a more protective registration process, two bee species, Osmia bicornis/Osmia cornuta and Bombus terrestris, were proposed by the European Food Safety Authority as additional test surrogates to the honey bee Apis mellifera. We investigated the acute toxicity (median lethal dose, LD50) of multiple commercial insecticide formulations towards the red mason bee (O. bicornis) and compared these values to honey bee regulatory endpoints. In two thirds of all cases, O. bicornis was less sensitive than the honey bee. By applying an assessment factor of 10 on the honey bee endpoint, a protective level was achieved for 87% (13 out 15) of all evaluated products. Our results show that O. bicornis is rarely an adequate additional surrogate species for lower tier risk assessment since it is less sensitive than the honey bee for the majority of investigated products. Given the currently limited database on bee species sensitivity, the honey bee seems sufficiently protective in acute scenarios as long as a reasonable assessment factor is applied. However, additional surrogate species can still be relevant for ecologically meaningful higher tier studies.
蜜蜂提供了重要的生态系统服务，并有助于维持花卉生物多样性。然而，野生和驯养的蜜蜂物种正在持续减少。由于农业中使用杀虫剂是造成这一过程的主要原因，因此需要进行保护性风险评估。为了实现更具保护性的登记程序，欧洲食品安全局提议将两种蜜蜂，Osmia bicornis/Osmia cornuta 和 Bombus terrestris，作为额外的测试替代物，以取代蜜蜂 Apis mellifera。我们研究了多种商业杀虫剂配方对红壁泥蜂（Osmia bicornis）的急性毒性（半数致死剂量，LD50），并将这些值与蜜蜂的监管终点进行了比较。在所有情况下的三分之二中，红壁泥蜂比蜜蜂的敏感性更低。在蜜蜂终点应用评估因子 10，在评估的所有产品中，有 87%（13/15）达到了保护水平。我们的结果表明，由于在大多数情况下，O. bicornis 比蜜蜂的敏感性更低，因此它很少是更具保护性的替代物种。鉴于目前蜜蜂物种敏感性的有限数据库，只要应用合理的评估因子，蜜蜂在急性情况下似乎就具有足够的保护作用。然而，对于具有生态意义的更高层次的研究，额外的替代物种仍然是相关的。
