Abstract
AbstractAimBees play an important role in natural ecosystems and the world's food supply. In the past decades, bee abundance and diversity have declined globally. This has resulted in decreased pollination services for natural ecosystems and the agricultural sector at the field scale. One of the causes of the decline in bee abundance and diversity is the use of pesticides. Linking pesticide use, land use and bee presence could provide crucial insights into areas, and pesticides that pose a significant threat to the abundance and diversity of bees. Obtaining actual figures of farmer pesticide use is rarely possible. Therefore, we designed a method to study the effects of potential pesticide use on the survival and distribution of honeybees and bumblebees.LocationThe Netherlands.MethodsA pesticide risk model was implemented incorporating a hazard quotient as the risk assessment. The number of allowed pesticide active ingredients per crop that could pose a risk to honeybees and bumblebees was linked to the Dutch crop parcel locations for 2015 and 2016. The potential pesticide risk maps were analysed using honeybee colony survival and bumblebee presence data.ResultsNon‐significant negative effects of potential pesticide risk on honeybee colony survival and bumblebee presence were found. A significant negative effect of greenhouses was identified for both honeybees and bumblebees. The most important factors in the models predicting honeybee colony survival and bumblebee presence were urban land areas and natural grasslands, respectively, both showing a positive effect.Main conclusionsHere, the first attempt to estimate and map pesticide risk to bees in the Netherlands in a country‐wide manner is presented. The results could provide crucial high‐resolution insights for bee conservation action and facilitate the increase of pollination services in natural ecosystems and the agricultural sector on a local and country‐wide scale.
Highlights
Bees are important organisms for ecosystems, food production and the economy
We developed potential pesticide risk maps based on the number of allowed active ingredients on all agricultural par‐ cels in the Netherlands
Generalized linear models were implemented to identify the effect of potential pesticide risk on honeybee colony survival and the habitat suitability for bumblebees while including other land use, vegetation structure and bioclimatic variables
Summary
Bees are important organisms for ecosystems, food production and the economy They serve as pollinators, playing a role in the abun‐ dance, distribution and diversity of flowering plants. With a contribu‐ tion of 153 billion euros, pollinators represent a share of 9.5% of the total value of the global food production (Gallai, Salles, Settele, & Vaissière, 2009). Both honeybees and wild bees play an import‐ ant role in plant pollination with wild pollinator communities often outperforming managed honeybees in pollination success (Garibaldi et al, 2013). The declines of pollinator abundance and diversity have been reported to occur around the globe (Potts et al, 2010, 2016; Vanbergen,2013) hav‐ ing pesticide use, habitat loss, parasite load and changes in climatic conditions as some of the main contributing factors for the declines
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