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Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris
Although neonicotinoids are targeted at insects, their predominant use as a seed dressing and their long persistence in soils mean that non-target soil organisms such as earthworms are likely to be chronically exposed to them. Chronic exposure may pose risks that are not evaluated in most toxicity t...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5390763/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28413730 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3177 |
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author | Basley, Kate Goulson, Dave |
author_facet | Basley, Kate Goulson, Dave |
author_sort | Basley, Kate |
collection | PubMed |
description | Although neonicotinoids are targeted at insects, their predominant use as a seed dressing and their long persistence in soils mean that non-target soil organisms such as earthworms are likely to be chronically exposed to them. Chronic exposure may pose risks that are not evaluated in most toxicity tests. We experimentally tested the effect of field-realistic concentrations of a commonly used neonicotinoid, clothianidin, on mortality, weight gain, and food consumption to assess the impacts of chronic exposure over four months on fitness of L. terrestris individuals. We undertook three separate experiments, each with different exposure routes: treated soil only (experiment A), treated food and soil combined (experiment B) and treated food only (experiment C). Mortality was negatively affected by exposure from treated soil only with greatest mortality observed in the groups exposed to the two highest concentrations (20 ppb and 100 ppb), but no clear effect on mortality was found in the other two experiments. When clothianidin was present in the food, an anti-feedant effect was present in months one and two which subsequently disappeared; if this occurs in the field, it could result in reduced rates of decomposition of treated crop foliage. We found no significant effects of any treatment on worm body mass. We cannot rule out stronger adverse effects if worms come into close proximity to treated seeds, or if other aspects of fitness were examined. Overall, our data suggest that field-realistic exposure to clothianidin has a significant but temporary effect on food consumption and can have weak but significant impacts on mortality of L. terrestris. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5390763 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53907632017-04-14 Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris Basley, Kate Goulson, Dave PeerJ Agricultural Science Although neonicotinoids are targeted at insects, their predominant use as a seed dressing and their long persistence in soils mean that non-target soil organisms such as earthworms are likely to be chronically exposed to them. Chronic exposure may pose risks that are not evaluated in most toxicity tests. We experimentally tested the effect of field-realistic concentrations of a commonly used neonicotinoid, clothianidin, on mortality, weight gain, and food consumption to assess the impacts of chronic exposure over four months on fitness of L. terrestris individuals. We undertook three separate experiments, each with different exposure routes: treated soil only (experiment A), treated food and soil combined (experiment B) and treated food only (experiment C). Mortality was negatively affected by exposure from treated soil only with greatest mortality observed in the groups exposed to the two highest concentrations (20 ppb and 100 ppb), but no clear effect on mortality was found in the other two experiments. When clothianidin was present in the food, an anti-feedant effect was present in months one and two which subsequently disappeared; if this occurs in the field, it could result in reduced rates of decomposition of treated crop foliage. We found no significant effects of any treatment on worm body mass. We cannot rule out stronger adverse effects if worms come into close proximity to treated seeds, or if other aspects of fitness were examined. Overall, our data suggest that field-realistic exposure to clothianidin has a significant but temporary effect on food consumption and can have weak but significant impacts on mortality of L. terrestris. PeerJ Inc. 2017-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5390763/ /pubmed/28413730 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3177 Text en ©2017 Basley and Goulson 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 Basley, Kate Goulson, Dave Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris |
title | Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris |
title_full | Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris |
title_fullStr | Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris |
title_full_unstemmed | Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris |
title_short | Effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris |
title_sort | effects of chronic exposure to clothianidin on the earthworm lumbricus terrestris |
topic | Agricultural Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5390763/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28413730 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3177 |
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