Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour, Department of Biological Sciences, School of Life Sciences and the Environment, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
Department of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 Mar 9;289(1970):20212353. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2021.2353. Epub 2022 Mar 2.
Agrochemical formulations are composed of two broad groups of chemicals: active ingredients, which confer pest control action, and 'inert' ingredients, which facilitate the action of the active ingredient. Most research into the effects of agrochemicals focusses on the effects of active ingredients. This reflects the assumption that 'inert' ingredients are non-toxic. A review of relevant research shows that for bees, this assumption is without empirical foundation. After conducting a systematic literature search, we found just 19 studies that tested the effects of 'inert' ingredients on bee health. In these studies, 'inert' ingredients were found to cause mortality in bees through multiple exposure routes, act synergistically with other stressors and cause colony level effects. This lack of research is compounded by a lack of diversity in study organism used. We argue that 'inert' ingredients have distinct, and poorly understood, ecological persistency profiles and toxicities, making research into their individual effects necessary. We highlight the lack of mitigation in place to protect bees from 'inert' ingredients and argue that research efforts should be redistributed to address the knowledge gap identified here. If so-called 'inert' ingredients are, in fact, detrimental to bee health, their potential role in widespread bee declines needs urgent assessment.
具有防治病虫害作用的有效成分，以及有助于发挥有效成分作用的“惰性”成分。大多数关于农药影响的研究都集中在有效成分的影响上。这反映了这样一种假设，即“惰性”成分是无毒的。对相关研究的回顾表明，对于蜜蜂来说，这种假设没有经验依据。在进行系统的文献检索后，我们只发现了 19 项测试“惰性”成分对蜜蜂健康影响的研究。在这些研究中，“惰性”成分通过多种暴露途径导致蜜蜂死亡，与其他压力源协同作用，并对蜂群产生影响。这种研究的缺乏因研究中使用的生物体多样性的缺乏而更加严重。我们认为，“惰性”成分具有独特且尚未被充分了解的生态持久性特征和毒性，因此有必要对其单独的影响进行研究。我们强调缺乏缓解措施来保护蜜蜂免受“惰性”成分的侵害，并认为应该重新分配研究工作来解决这里确定的知识差距。如果所谓的“惰性”成分实际上对蜜蜂健康有害，那么它们在蜜蜂广泛减少中的潜在作用需要紧急评估。
