Federal University of São Carlos, UFSCar, Postgraduate Program in Biotechnology and Environmental Monitoring, Sorocaba, São Paulo State, Brazil.
São Paulo State University, UNESP, Postgraduate Program in Biological Sciences, Rio Claro, São Paulo State, Brazil.
Environ Res. 2022 Sep;212(Pt A):113127. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.113127. Epub 2022 Mar 23.
All across the world, different countries use Ecological risk assessments (ERA) of pesticides to pollinators as a regulatory tool to understand the safety of pesticide use in agriculture. However, pesticide application is still recognized as one of the main stress factors causing a decline in the global population of bees. In all ERA procedures, the effects of pesticides on the honey bee species Apis mellifera are used as a reference for the effects on all different bee species. To evaluate if tropical native bees are protected by the current risk assessment procedures and to propose improvements to the methods, we assessed the ecological risk of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid posed to native and exotic bee species. The risk was assessed through a low (TIER I) and an intermediate (TIER II) level of analysis. For TIER I the USEPA BeeREX model was used and for TIER II the Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD) approach was adopted. For the imidacloprid exposure conditions, four different crops were taken into consideration; bean, passion fruit, sunflower and tomato. The imidacloprid risk on native species was assessed both by extrapolating the effects obtained to Apis species, and by using ecotoxicological data from tests performed with native species. In TIER I, the risks calculated through empirical data showed that more than 50% of the non-Apis species presented risk levels of 28-180% higher than those obtained with the extrapolation factor used in the Brazilian pesticide regulation. In TIER II, the SSDs showed that most of the native bees are more sensitive to imidacloprid than the Africanized A. mellifera. This is the first study in which an ERA of a pesticide was conducted on tropical bee species. Here we also present some gaps and perspectives for future studies aiming to improve the risk assessment of pesticides in terrestrial environments.
全世界不同国家都使用农药对传粉媒介的生态风险评估（ERA）作为监管工具，以了解农业中使用农药的安全性。然而，农药的使用仍然被认为是导致全球蜜蜂数量下降的主要压力因素之一。在所有 ERA 程序中，都将蜜蜂物种 Apis mellifera 的农药影响用作评估所有不同蜜蜂物种影响的参考。为了评估热带本地蜜蜂是否受到当前风险评估程序的保护，并提出改进方法的建议，我们评估了新烟碱类杀虫剂噻虫啉对本地和外来蜜蜂物种的生态风险。通过低（TIER I）和中级（TIER II）分析水平来评估风险。对于 TIER I，使用了美国环保署的 BeeREX 模型，对于 TIER II，采用了物种敏感性分布（SSD）方法。对于噻虫啉的暴露条件，考虑了四种不同的作物；豆类、百香果、向日葵和西红柿。通过将获得的效应外推到 Apis 物种，以及使用与本地物种进行的测试的生态毒理学数据，评估了噻虫啉对本地物种的风险。在 TIER I 中，通过经验数据计算的风险表明，超过 50%的非 Apis 物种的风险水平比巴西农药法规中使用的外推因子高出 28-180%。在 TIER II 中，SSD 表明大多数本地蜜蜂对噻虫啉的敏感性比非洲化的 Apis mellifera 更高。这是首次对热带蜜蜂物种进行农药 ERA 研究。在这里，我们还提出了一些未来研究的差距和观点，旨在改善对陆地环境中农药的风险评估。
