Thompson Linzi Jay, Stanley Dara A, Dacke Marie, Herbertsson Lina
School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Ecotoxicology. 2025 Jul;34(5):845-852. doi: 10.1007/s10646-025-02878-9. Epub 2025 Mar 31.
Herbicides are one of the most heavily applied groups of pesticides globally. Whilst research on herbicides in relation to bees is growing, we still have more to learn about how bees may interact with herbicides and the subsequent consequences for bee health. As herbicides are designed to kill the plants they are applied to, bees and other pollinators may interact with them in a different way to other pesticide groups which is important to understand in the context of evaluating hazard and risk. Here, we conducted both a choice and no-choice test, to determine if bumblebees would be deterred from foraging from feeders containing commercial formulations of Roundup (Ultra and Biactive, respectively) compared to controls. We found across both experiments that bees were deterred from foraging where feeders contained above field-realistic concentrations of Roundup formulation, and that on average colonies reduced their consumption from these feeders by ~50% despite lacking other food sources. This demonstrates that, when given no choice, bees can be deterred from sucrose containing Roundup Biactive, although above expected field concentrations, even to their own nutritional detriment. Separately, individual foragers were observed avoiding feeders containing field-realistic levels of Roundup Ultra compared to controls, showing a preference for uncontaminated feed when given a choice. As this was an experimental setup using high concentrations of Roundup with sucrose solution rather than real flowers, more work is needed to understand this phenomenon under field conditions. This work provides useful information and insights for future studies investigating the impacts of glyphosate in the form of both active substance and formulation on bees and could also be useful in identifying future mitigation strategies for field use.
除草剂是全球使用最为广泛的农药类别之一。虽然关于除草剂与蜜蜂关系的研究正在增加，但我们仍有许多需要了解的地方，比如蜜蜂如何与除草剂相互作用以及对蜜蜂健康的后续影响。由于除草剂旨在杀死其施用的植物，蜜蜂和其他传粉者与它们的相互作用方式可能与其他农药类别不同，这在评估危害和风险时很重要。在此，我们进行了一项选择试验和一项无选择试验，以确定与对照相比，熊蜂是否会被含有草甘膦商业配方（分别为Ultra和Biactive）的喂食器阻止觅食。我们在两项实验中均发现，当喂食器中草甘膦配方的浓度高于田间实际浓度时，蜜蜂会被阻止觅食，并且平均而言，蜂群从这些喂食器中的摄入量减少了约50%，尽管缺乏其他食物来源。这表明，在别无选择的情况下，即使草甘膦Biactive的浓度高于预期田间浓度，蜜蜂也会被阻止取食含有它的蔗糖，甚至会损害自身营养。另外，与对照相比，观察到个体觅食者会避开含有田间实际浓度草甘膦Ultra的喂食器，在有选择时表现出对未受污染食物的偏好。由于这是一个使用高浓度草甘膦与蔗糖溶液而非真实花朵的实验设置，需要开展更多工作以了解田间条件下的这一现象。这项工作为未来研究草甘膦的活性物质和配方形式对蜜蜂的影响提供了有用信息和见解，也有助于确定未来田间使用的缓解策略。
