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A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris

There is currently a great deal of concern about population declines in pollinating insects. Many potential threats have been identified which may adversely affect the behaviour and health of both honey bees and bumble bees: these include pesticide exposure, and parasites and pathogens. Whether biol...

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Autores principales: Dutka, Alexandrea, McNulty, Alison, Williamson, Sally M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4655097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26618084
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1413
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author Dutka, Alexandrea
McNulty, Alison
Williamson, Sally M.
author_facet Dutka, Alexandrea
McNulty, Alison
Williamson, Sally M.
author_sort Dutka, Alexandrea
collection PubMed
description There is currently a great deal of concern about population declines in pollinating insects. Many potential threats have been identified which may adversely affect the behaviour and health of both honey bees and bumble bees: these include pesticide exposure, and parasites and pathogens. Whether biological pest control agents adversely affect bees has been much less well studied: it is generally assumed that biological agents are safer for wildlife than chemical pesticides. The aim of this study was to test whether entomopathogenic nematodes sold as biological pest control products could potentially have adverse effects on the bumble bee Bombus terrestris. One product was a broad spectrum pest control agent containing both Heterorhabditis sp. and Steinernema sp., the other product was specifically for weevil control and contained only Steinernema kraussei. Both nematode products caused ≥80% mortality within the 96 h test period when bees were exposed to soil containing entomopathogenic nematodes at the recommended field concentration of 50 nematodes per cm(2) soil. Of particular concern is the fact that nematodes from the broad spectrum product could proliferate in the carcasses of dead bees, and therefore potentially infect a whole bee colony or spread to the wider environment.
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spelling pubmed-46550972015-11-27 A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris Dutka, Alexandrea McNulty, Alison Williamson, Sally M. PeerJ Agricultural Science There is currently a great deal of concern about population declines in pollinating insects. Many potential threats have been identified which may adversely affect the behaviour and health of both honey bees and bumble bees: these include pesticide exposure, and parasites and pathogens. Whether biological pest control agents adversely affect bees has been much less well studied: it is generally assumed that biological agents are safer for wildlife than chemical pesticides. The aim of this study was to test whether entomopathogenic nematodes sold as biological pest control products could potentially have adverse effects on the bumble bee Bombus terrestris. One product was a broad spectrum pest control agent containing both Heterorhabditis sp. and Steinernema sp., the other product was specifically for weevil control and contained only Steinernema kraussei. Both nematode products caused ≥80% mortality within the 96 h test period when bees were exposed to soil containing entomopathogenic nematodes at the recommended field concentration of 50 nematodes per cm(2) soil. Of particular concern is the fact that nematodes from the broad spectrum product could proliferate in the carcasses of dead bees, and therefore potentially infect a whole bee colony or spread to the wider environment. PeerJ Inc. 2015-11-19 /pmc/articles/PMC4655097/ /pubmed/26618084 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1413 Text en © 2015 Dutka 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Agricultural Science
Dutka, Alexandrea
McNulty, Alison
Williamson, Sally M.
A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris
title A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris
title_full A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris
title_fullStr A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris
title_full_unstemmed A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris
title_short A new threat to bees? Entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in Bombus terrestris
title_sort new threat to bees? entomopathogenic nematodes used in biological pest control cause rapid mortality in bombus terrestris
topic Agricultural Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4655097/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26618084
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1413
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