The effects of glyphosate, pure or in herbicide formulation, on bumble bees and their gut microbial communities

Abstract

The widespread use of glyphosate-based formulations to eliminate unwanted vegetation has increased concerns regarding their effects on non-target organisms, such as honey bees and their gut microbial communities. These effects have been associated with both glyphosate and co-formulants, but it is still unknown whether they translate to other bee species. In this study, we tested whether glyphosate, pure or in herbicide formulation, can affect the gut microbiota and survival rates of the eastern bumble bee, Bombus impatiens. We performed mark-recapture experiments with bumble bee workers from four different commercial colonies, which were exposed to field relevant concentrations of glyphosate or a glyphosate-based formulation (0.01 mM to 1 mM). After a 5-day period of exposure, we returned the bees to their original colonies, and they were sampled at days 0, 3 and 7 post-exposure to investigate changes in microbial community and microbiota resilience by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and quantitative PCR. We found that exposure to glyphosate, pure or in herbicide formulation, reduced the relative abundance of a beneficial bee gut bacterium, Snodgrassella, in bees from two of four colonies when compared to control bees at day 0 post-exposure, but this reduction became non-significant at days 3 and 7 post-exposure, suggesting microbiota resilience. We did not find significant changes in total bacteria between control and exposed bees. Moreover, we observed an overall trend in decreased survival rates in bumble bees exposed to 1 mM herbicide formulation during the 7-day post-exposure period, suggesting a potential negative effect of this formulation on bumble bees.