Odemer Richard, Alkassab Abdulrahim T, Bischoff Gabriela, Frommberger Malte, Wernecke Anna, Wirtz Ina P, Pistorius Jens, Odemer Franziska
Institute for Bee Protection, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, 38104 Braunschweig, Germany.
Institute for Bee Protection, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Insects. 2020 Sep 27;11(10):664. doi: 10.3390/insects11100664.
The ongoing debate about glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) and their implications for beneficial arthropods gives rise to controversy. This research was carried out to cover possible sublethal GBH effects on the brood and colony development, adult survival, and overwintering success of honey bees ( L.) under field conditions. Residues in bee relevant matrices, such as nectar, pollen, and plants, were additionally measured. To address these questions, we adopted four independent study approaches. For brood effects and survival, we orally exposed mini-hives housed in the "Kieler mating-nuc" system to sublethal concentrations of 4.8 mg glyphosate/kg (T1, low) and 137.6 mg glyphosate/kg (T2, high) over a period of one brood cycle (21 days). Brood development and colony conditions were assessed after a modified OECD method (No. 75). For adult survival, we weighed and labeled freshly emerged workers from control and exposed colonies and introduced them into non-contaminated mini-hives to monitor their life span for 25 consecutive days. The results from these experiments showed a trivial effect of GBH on colony conditions and the survival of individual workers, even though the hatching weight was reduced in T2. The brood termination rate (BTR) in the T2 treatment, however, was more than doubled (49.84%) when compared to the control (22.11%) or T1 (20.69%). This was surprising as T2 colonies gained similar weight and similar numbers of bees per colony compared to the control, indicating an equal performance. Obviously, the brood development in T2 was not "terminated" as expected by the OECD method terminology, but rather "slowed down" for an unknown period of time. In light of these findings, we suggest that chronic high GBH exposure is capable of significantly delaying worker brood development, while no further detrimental effects seem to appear at the colony level. Against this background, we discuss additional results and possible consequences of GBH for honey bee health.
关于草甘膦基除草剂（GBH）及其对有益节肢动物影响的持续争论引发了争议。本研究旨在探讨在田间条件下，GBH对蜜蜂（L.）的蜂群和群体发育、成虫存活以及越冬成功率可能产生的亚致死效应。此外，还测量了花蜜、花粉和植物等与蜜蜂相关基质中的残留物。为解决这些问题，我们采用了四种独立的研究方法。对于蜂群效应和存活情况，我们将置于“基尔交配核”系统中的小型蜂箱口服暴露于亚致死浓度的草甘膦，即4.8毫克草甘膦/千克（T1，低浓度）和137.6毫克草甘膦/千克（T2，高浓度），持续一个蜂群周期（21天）。采用改良的经合组织方法（第75号）评估蜂群发育和蜂群状况。对于成虫存活情况，我们对来自对照蜂群和暴露蜂群的新羽化工蜂进行称重和标记，然后将它们引入未受污染的小型蜂箱中，连续25天监测它们的寿命。这些实验结果表明，尽管T2组的孵化重量有所降低，但GBH对蜂群状况和个体工蜂的存活影响微不足道。然而，与对照（22.11%）或T1（20.69%）相比，T2处理组的蜂群终止率（BTR）增加了一倍多（49.84%）。这令人惊讶，因为与对照组相比，T2组蜂群的重量和每群蜜蜂数量相似，表明表现相当。显然，T2组的蜂群发育并非如经合组织方法术语所预期的那样“终止”，而是在一段未知时间内“减缓”。鉴于这些发现，我们认为长期高剂量GBH暴露能够显著延迟工蜂幼虫发育，而在蜂群层面似乎没有进一步的有害影响。在此背景下，我们讨论了GBH对蜜蜂健康的其他结果和可能的后果。
