Solitary bee behaviour and pollination service delivery is differentially impacted by neonicotinoid and pyrethroid insecticides

Abstract

Solitary bees are important pollinators of crops and wild plants, and their decline poses a risk to the sustained provision of the services they provide. Although evidence suggests that exposure to insecticides can affect bees, most pesticide research and risk assessment has focussed on social bees and mortality while solitary species are understudied. The ability to forage is critical for solitary bee reproduction, also in how they deliver pollination services, and we know little about how insecticides can impact these behaviours. We exposed solitary red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) to field realistic levels of two widely used insecticides with differing modes of action (lambda-cyhalothrin (pyrethroid) and acetamiprid (neonicotinoid)), in a semi-field setting over multiple rounds of exposure. We then tested impacts on bee behaviour and pollination in apples, an important global insect-pollinated crop. Pollination by insecticide-treated bees reduced apple production by up to 86 % depending on the compound and the number of exposures, but the underlying mechanism behind this remains unclear and should be investigated further. Other measurements of pollination services including number of seeds per apple and stigma pollen deposition showed no relationship with pesticide treatment. Bee foraging behaviour was also affected by treatment where both insecticides appear to induce an excitatory effect which was constant for acetamiprid and eventually ceased for lambda-cyhalothrin after multiple exposures. This suggests that both neonicotinoid and non‑neonicotinoid insecticides can potentially affect behaviour and pollination services of solitary bees depending on how often they are exposed, which is particularly important given the changing usage patterns of these compound classes based on regulations around their use. This highlights the importance of moving insecticide risk assessment towards more field realistic scenarios and including sublethal effects on solitary and social bees, in addition to considering repeated exposures of bees to pesticides as is realistic in the field.