School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Environ Pollut. 2022 Sep 15;309:119722. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2022.119722. Epub 2022 Jul 6.
Exposure to pesticides is a major threat to bumblebee (Bombus spp.) health. In temperate regions, queens of many bumblebee species hibernate underground for several months, putting them at potentially high risk of exposure to soil contaminants. The extent to which bumblebees are exposed to residues in agricultural soils during hibernation is currently unknown, which limits our understanding of the full pesticide exposome for bumblebees throughout their lifecycle. To generate field exposure estimates for overwintering bumblebee queens to pesticide residues, we sampled soils from areas corresponding to suitable likely hibernation sites at six apple orchards and 13 diversified farms throughout Southern Ontario (Canada) in fall 2019-2020. Detectable levels of pesticides were found in 65 of 66 soil samples analysed for multi-pesticide residues (UPLC-MS/MS). A total of 53 active ingredients (AIs) were detected in soils, including 27 fungicides, 13 insecticides, and 13 herbicides. Overall, the frequency of detection, residue levels (median = 37.82 vs. 2.20 ng/g), and number of pesticides per sample (mean = 12 vs. 4 AIs) were highest for orchard soils compared to soils from diversified farms. Ninety-one percent of samples contained multiple residues (up to 29 different AIs per sample), including mixtures of insecticides and fungicides that might lead to synergistic effects. Our results suggest that when hibernating in agricultural areas, bumblebee queens are very likely to be exposed to a wide range of pesticide residues in soil, including potentially harmful levels of insecticides (e.g., cyantraniliprole up to 148.82 ng/g). Our study indicates the importance of empirically testing the potential effects of pesticide residues in soils for hibernating bumblebee queens, using field exposure data such as those generated here. The differences in potential exposure that we detected between cropping systems can also be used to better inform regulations that govern the use of agricultural pesticides, notably in apple orchards.
接触农药是熊蜂（Bombus spp.）健康的主要威胁。在温带地区，许多熊蜂物种的蜂王在地底冬眠数月，这使它们面临着接触土壤污染物的潜在高风险。目前，我们并不清楚熊蜂在冬眠期间会接触到多少农业土壤中的残留农药，这限制了我们对其整个生命周期中接触到的全部农药的了解。为了对越冬熊蜂蜂王接触农药残留的情况进行实地暴露评估，我们于 2019-2020 年秋季在安大略省南部的六个苹果园和 13 个多元化农场的潜在冬眠地点采集了土壤样本。在分析的 66 个多农药残留样本中，有 65 个样本检测到农药残留。在土壤中检测到了 53 种有效成分（AIs），包括 27 种杀菌剂、13 种杀虫剂和 13 种除草剂。总体而言，与多元化农场的土壤相比，果园土壤中的检测频率、残留水平（中位数为 37.82 vs. 2.20ng/g）和每个样本中的农药数量（平均值为 12 种 vs. 4 种 AIs）都更高。91%的样本含有多种残留（每个样本多达 29 种不同的 AIs），包括可能导致协同作用的杀虫剂和杀菌剂混合物。我们的研究结果表明，当在农业区冬眠时，熊蜂蜂王很可能会接触到土壤中广泛的农药残留，包括可能有害水平的杀虫剂（例如，噻虫胺高达 148.82ng/g）。我们的研究表明，使用实地暴露数据（如这里生成的数据）来测试土壤中冬眠熊蜂蜂王对农药残留的潜在影响非常重要。我们在不同种植系统之间检测到的潜在暴露差异也可用于更好地为管理农业农药使用的法规提供信息，特别是在苹果园中。
