Abstract
The environmental residue/sublethal doses of neonicotinoid insecticides are believed to generate a negative impact on pollinators, including honey bees. Here we report our recent investigation on how imidacloprid, one of the major neonicotinoids, affects worker bees by profiling the transcriptomes of various ages of bees exposed to different doses of imidacloprid during the larval stage. The results show that imidacloprid treatments during the larval stage severely altered the gene expression profiles and may induce precocious foraging. Differential expression of foraging regulators was found in 14-day-old treated adults. A high transcriptome similarity between larvae-treated 14-day-old adults and 20-day-old controls was also observed, and the similarity was positively correlated with the dose of imidacloprid. One parts per billion (ppb) of imidacloprid was sufficient to generate a long-term impact on the bee’s gene expression as severe as with 50 ppb imidacloprid. The disappearance of nurse bees may be driven not only by the hive member constitution but also by the neonicotinoid-induced precocious foraging behavior.
Highlights
With high pollinating efficiency, workers of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, are the most important pollinators for agricultural crops as well as wild plants (Calderone, 2012; van der Zee et al, 2012; Garibaldi et al, 2013, 2016; Hung et al, 2018)
Honey bees may be exposed to different types of agricultural chemicals, previous studies evaluating the impacts of pesticides found that a group of insecticides called neonicotinoids may be hazardous to honey bees (Goulson, 2013; Lu et al, 2014; Sandrock et al, 2014; Goñalongs and Farina, 2015)
Imidacloprid was supplied in a feeding solution using 0.1% DMSO in ddH2O as a solvent; control bees were fed with 0.1% DMSO solution without insecticide
Summary
Workers of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, are the most important pollinators for agricultural crops as well as wild plants (Calderone, 2012; van der Zee et al, 2012; Garibaldi et al, 2013, 2016; Hung et al, 2018). Honey bees may be exposed to different types of agricultural chemicals, previous studies evaluating the impacts of pesticides found that a group of insecticides called neonicotinoids may be hazardous to honey bees (Goulson, 2013; Lu et al, 2014; Sandrock et al, 2014; Goñalongs and Farina, 2015). A sublethal dose of imidacloprid, one of the major neonicotinoids mostly used around the world, may not cause acute bee death, but it can generate chronic irreversible damage to the bee Sublethal Imidacloprid Affected Honey Bee colony. Chronic exposure to sublethal doses of imidacloprid can generate abnormal behavior or physiological disorders in bees (Goulson, 2013; Lu et al, 2014; Sandrock et al, 2014; Goñalongs and Farina, 2015). A long-term investigation revealed that honey bee colony health and overwintering success are negatively affected by exposure to field doses [20–100 parts per billion (ppb)] of imidacloprid and that colony survival is correlated with the amount of imidacloprid (Dively et al, 2015; Woodcock et al, 2017; Wood et al, 2018)
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