Zhang Xufeng, Cao Qian, Wang Feng, Du Yinyin, Zhao Wen, Guo Yuan, Rueppell Olav
College of Horticulture, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taiyuan 030001, China.
College of Animal Sciences, Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong 030801, China.
Insects. 2025 Jun 8;16(6):603. doi: 10.3390/insects16060603.
Honey bees and other pollinators are key to functioning natural and managed ecosystems. However, their health is threatened by many factors, including pesticides. Spraying fungicides during flowering of fruit trees is widespread even though it directly exposes pollinators to these fungicides. Here, we report a series of experiments designed to understand how the combination of propiconazole and carbendazim, marketed in China as Chunmanchun, affects honey bee health. With an acute oral toxicity of 23.8 μg a.i./bee over 24 h in the laboratory, we considered the acute mortality risk from normal Chunmanchun applications as relatively low. However, our comprehensive studies revealed other diverse effects: Chunmanchun reduced memory after classic conditioning by approximately 25% and altered the activity of protective enzymes and the composition of the honey bees' gut microbiota. Specifically, the genus was decreased by ~13%, and and were increased by ~10% and ~7.5%, respectively. The gut metabolome was also disrupted in diverse ways, possibly as a functional consequence of the microbiome changes. Thus, we demonstrated numerous sublethal effects of the combination of propiconazole and carbendazim, which adds to the growing evidence that agrochemicals and fungicides in particular can harm pollinator health in subtle ways that are not captured in simple mortality assays.
蜜蜂和其他传粉者是自然和人工管理生态系统正常运转的关键。然而，它们的健康受到包括农药在内的多种因素的威胁。即使在果树开花期喷洒杀菌剂会使传粉者直接接触这些杀菌剂，但这种做法仍很普遍。在此，我们报告了一系列实验，旨在了解在中国市场上以“春满春”销售的丙环唑和多菌灵的组合如何影响蜜蜂健康。在实验室中，其24小时的急性经口毒性为23.8微克有效成分/只蜜蜂，我们认为正常使用“春满春”造成的急性死亡风险相对较低。然而，我们的综合研究揭示了其他多种影响：“春满春”使经典条件反射后的记忆力降低了约25%，并改变了保护酶的活性以及蜜蜂肠道微生物群的组成。具体而言，某属减少了约13%，另两属分别增加了约10%和约7.5%。肠道代谢组也以多种方式受到干扰，这可能是微生物群变化的功能后果。因此，我们证明了丙环唑和多菌灵组合的众多亚致死效应，这进一步证明了农用化学品，尤其是杀菌剂会以简单死亡率测定中未体现的微妙方式损害传粉者健康，此类证据越来越多。
