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Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter

Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are bioindicators of environmental pollution levels. During their wide-ranging foraging activity, these hymenopterans are exposed to pollutants, thus becoming a useful tool to trace the environmental contaminants as heavy metals, pesticides, radionuclides and volatile...

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Autores principales: Negri, Ilaria, Mavris, Christian, Di Prisco, Gennaro, Caprio, Emilio, Pellecchia, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26147982
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132491
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author Negri, Ilaria
Mavris, Christian
Di Prisco, Gennaro
Caprio, Emilio
Pellecchia, Marco
author_facet Negri, Ilaria
Mavris, Christian
Di Prisco, Gennaro
Caprio, Emilio
Pellecchia, Marco
author_sort Negri, Ilaria
collection PubMed
description Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are bioindicators of environmental pollution levels. During their wide-ranging foraging activity, these hymenopterans are exposed to pollutants, thus becoming a useful tool to trace the environmental contaminants as heavy metals, pesticides, radionuclides and volatile organic compounds. In the present work we demonstrate that bees can also be used as active samplers of airborne particulate matter. Worker bees were collected from hives located in a polluted postmining area in South West Sardinia (Italy) that is also exposed to dust emissions from industrial plants. The area is included in an official list of sites of national interest for environmental remediation, and has been characterized for the effects of pollutants on the health of the resident population. The head, wings, hind legs and alimentary canal of the bees were investigated with Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The analyses pointed to specific morphological and chemical features of the particulate, and resulted into the identification of three categories of particles: industry -, postmining -, and soil –derived. With the exception of the gut, all the analyzed body districts displayed inorganic particles, mostly concentrated in specific areas of the body (i.e. along the costal margin of the fore wings, the medial plane of the head, and the inner surface of the hind legs). The role of both past mining activities and the industrial activity close to the study area as sources of the particulate matter is also discussed. We conclude that honey bees are able to collect samples of the main airborne particles emitted from different sources, therefore could be an ideal tool for monitoring such a kind of pollutants.
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spelling pubmed-44926802015-07-15 Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter Negri, Ilaria Mavris, Christian Di Prisco, Gennaro Caprio, Emilio Pellecchia, Marco PLoS One Research Article Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) are bioindicators of environmental pollution levels. During their wide-ranging foraging activity, these hymenopterans are exposed to pollutants, thus becoming a useful tool to trace the environmental contaminants as heavy metals, pesticides, radionuclides and volatile organic compounds. In the present work we demonstrate that bees can also be used as active samplers of airborne particulate matter. Worker bees were collected from hives located in a polluted postmining area in South West Sardinia (Italy) that is also exposed to dust emissions from industrial plants. The area is included in an official list of sites of national interest for environmental remediation, and has been characterized for the effects of pollutants on the health of the resident population. The head, wings, hind legs and alimentary canal of the bees were investigated with Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The analyses pointed to specific morphological and chemical features of the particulate, and resulted into the identification of three categories of particles: industry -, postmining -, and soil –derived. With the exception of the gut, all the analyzed body districts displayed inorganic particles, mostly concentrated in specific areas of the body (i.e. along the costal margin of the fore wings, the medial plane of the head, and the inner surface of the hind legs). The role of both past mining activities and the industrial activity close to the study area as sources of the particulate matter is also discussed. We conclude that honey bees are able to collect samples of the main airborne particles emitted from different sources, therefore could be an ideal tool for monitoring such a kind of pollutants. Public Library of Science 2015-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4492680/ /pubmed/26147982 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132491 Text en © 2015 Negri et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Negri, Ilaria
Mavris, Christian
Di Prisco, Gennaro
Caprio, Emilio
Pellecchia, Marco
Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter
title Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter
title_full Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter
title_fullStr Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter
title_full_unstemmed Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter
title_short Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter
title_sort honey bees (apis mellifera, l.) as active samplers of airborne particulate matter
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26147982
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132491
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