Neonicotinoid pesticide exposure impairs crop pollination services provided by bumblebees.

ABSTRACT: Recent concern over global pollinator declines has led to considerable research on the effects of pesticides on bees. Although pesticides are typically not encountered at lethal levels in the field, there is growing evidence indicating that exposure to field-realistic levels can have sublethal effects on bees, affecting their foraging behaviour, homing ability and reproductive success. Bees are essential for the pollination of a wide variety of crops and the majority of wild flowering plants, but until now research on pesticide effects has been limited to direct effects on bees themselves and not on the pollination services they provide. Here we show the first evidence to our knowledge that pesticide exposure can reduce the pollination services bumblebees deliver to apples, a crop of globa

SUBMITTER: Stanley DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4693958 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature