Abstract
Many insect species, including social insects, are currently declining in abundance and diversity. Pollutants such as pesticides, heavy metals, or airborne fine particulate matter from agricultural and industrial sources are among the factors driving this decline. While these pollutants can have direct detrimental effects, they can also result in negative interactive effects when social insects are simultaneously exposed to multiple stressors. For example, sublethal effects of pollutants can increase the disease susceptibility of social insects, and thereby jeopardize their survival. Here we review how pesticides, heavy metals, or airborne fine particulate matter interact with social insect physiology and especially the insects’ immune system. We then give an overview of the current knowledge of the interactive effects of these pollutants with pathogens or parasites. While the effects of pesticide exposure on social insects and their interactions with pathogens have been relatively well studied, the effects of other pollutants, such as heavy metals in soil or fine particulate matter from combustion, vehicular transport, agriculture, and coal mining are still largely unknown. We therefore provide an overview of urgently needed knowledge in order to mitigate the decline of social insects.
Highlights
Insect abundance and diversity are in decline worldwide [1,2,3]
Social insects are confronted with a plethora of pathogens that include viruses, bacteria, fungi, as well as protozoa and metazoan parasites and parasitoids [52]
We review the interactive effects of pathogens with groups of pollutants that social insects are often confronted with, pesticides whose residues are often ingested by foragers in agricultural landscapes, and heavy metals that may occur in soil
Summary
Insect abundance and diversity are in decline worldwide [1,2,3]. Various factors are contributing to this decline [1,3]. Pollutants incorporated into stored foods or nest materials, including beeswax, may accumulate over time [31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40], leading to a constant exposure to pollutants of larva and adults of new generations of workers, as well as sexuals [37,41,42] In this way, even subtle effects on individuals can have quite extreme negative consequences for social insect colonies, threatening their existence [21,29,30,43]. The degree of exposure to pollutants is, on one hand, strongly linked to life history and nutritional ecology of social Hymenoptera, and will, on the other hand, affect the energetic requirements and metabolic rate of individuals and the colony as a whole
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
