Pesticide exposure affects flight dynamics and reduces flight endurance in bumblebees.

ABSTRACT: The emergence of agricultural land use change creates a number of challenges that insect pollinators, such as eusocial bees, must overcome. Resultant fragmentation and loss of suitable foraging habitats, combined with pesticide exposure, may increase demands on foraging, specifically the ability to collect or reach sufficient resources under such stress. Understanding effects that pesticides have on flight performance is therefore vital if we are to assess colony success in these changing landscapes. Neonicotinoids are one of the most widely used classes of pesticide across the globe, and exposure to bees has been associated with reduced foraging efficiency and homing ability. One explanation for these effects could be that elements of flight are being affected, but apart from a couple of

SUBMITTER: Kenna D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6540668 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature