Behavioural and molecular responses to pesticide exposure in bumblebees.

大黄蜂对农药暴露的行为和分子反应。

• 批准号: NE/L00626X/1
• 负责人: Yannick Wurm
• 金额: $ 53.04万
• 依托单位: Queen Mary University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2014 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FL00626X%2F1
• 关键词: Behavioural; molecular; responses; pesticide; exposure

With globally growing human populations there is ever increasing demand for higher agricultural yields. Pesticides are applied to maintain high crop yields, but we know little about the effects that current pesticide use has on non-target organisms including the beneficial pollinators that visit these crops. The most important of such pollinators are the social bees (e.g. honey bees and bumble bees) - but their populations have recently been declining, posing important risks for food security and the global economy. Pesticides have been implicated in these declines, yet to date there is a great paucity of data to show whether pesticide exposure at field levels is actually having an effect on bees. Field level pesticide exposure is typically non-lethal to bees; so why should we be concerned? Recent studies have highlighted that pesticides approximating field levels may induce sublethal effects on individual bee behaviour. The concern is therefore that such effects at the individual level may have knock on effects to colony reproduction and survival, and this would explain observed bee declines. However, there are almost no studies that have set out to show whether this is indeed the case. Furthermore, we still lack an understanding about the manner in which foraging bees are affected at both the behavioural and molecular (genetic) level. The importance of understanding the subtle or large effects of pesticide exposure on foraging performance should not be underestimated: i) colony growth relies directly on efficient foraging and ii) any impairment to foraging performance has direct consequences on the successful pollination of crops and wild flowers. It is thus a research priority to know how a pesticide exposure landscape affects bee foraging behaviour, how this affects colony success, and ultimately how this shapes bee populations.We propose to carry out five axes of research that will address these gaps in our knowledge. Our study system will be bumblebees (Bombus spp), as bumblebees are one of the most substantial wild insect pollinators in the landscape, as well as being used for greenhouse pollination. First we will determine whether pesticides reduce the abilities of bumblebees to carry out complex pollination tasks. Second, we will determine whether this in turn affects colony growth and reproductive success. Third, we will determine whether exposure to pesticides affects the yield of the crops bumblebees are pollinating. Fourth, using tools previously only available to cancer researchers, we will identify the molecular changes that occur in bees when they are exposed to pesticides. Finally, by performing genetic screening on five species of wild bumblebees sampled from across the UK we will determine the extent to which pesticides affect wild bumblebee populations. If impairment to foraging behaviour induced by pesticide exposure has an effect on colony fitness then we expect there to be a strong selective pressure shaping bee populations.

随着全球人口的增长，对更高农业产量的需求也在不断增加。使用杀虫剂是为了保持作物的高产，但我们对目前使用的杀虫剂对非目标生物的影响知之甚少，包括造访这些作物的有益传粉者。这类传粉者中最重要的是群居蜜蜂(例如蜜蜂和大黄蜂)--但它们的数量最近一直在下降，对粮食安全和全球经济构成了重大风险。这些下降与杀虫剂有关，但到目前为止，显示田间水平的杀虫剂暴露是否真的对蜜蜂产生影响的数据非常缺乏。田间水平的杀虫剂暴露对蜜蜂通常是非致命的；那么我们为什么要担心呢？最近的研究强调，接近田间水平的杀虫剂可能会对个体蜜蜂的行为造成亚致命影响。因此，人们担心的是，在个体层面上的这种影响可能会对群体繁殖和生存产生连锁反应，这将解释观察到的蜜蜂数量下降的原因。然而，几乎没有研究表明这是否真的是这样。此外，我们仍然缺乏对觅食蜜蜂在行为和分子(遗传)层面上受到影响的方式的了解。了解农药暴露对觅食性能的细微或巨大影响的重要性不应被低估：i)种群增长直接依赖于有效的觅食，ii)觅食性能的任何损害都直接影响作物和野花的授粉成功。因此，了解农药暴露环境如何影响蜜蜂觅食行为，如何影响蜂群成功，以及最终如何塑造蜜蜂种群，是一个研究重点。我们建议开展五个方面的研究，以弥补我们知识中的这些差距。我们的研究系统将是熊蜂(Bombus Spp)，因为大黄蜂是这片土地上最重要的野生昆虫传粉者之一，也被用于温室授粉。首先，我们将确定杀虫剂是否会降低熊蜂执行复杂授粉任务的能力。其次，我们将确定这是否会反过来影响种群生长和繁殖成功。第三，我们将确定接触杀虫剂是否会影响熊蜂授粉的作物的产量。第四，使用以前只有癌症研究人员才能使用的工具，我们将识别蜜蜂接触杀虫剂时发生的分子变化。最后，通过对来自英国各地的五种野生熊蜂进行遗传筛选，我们将确定杀虫剂对野生熊蜂种群的影响程度。如果农药暴露对觅食行为的损害对蜂群适合度有影响，那么我们预计会有强大的选择压力来塑造蜜蜂种群。

项目成果

Impact of controlled neonicotinoid exposure on bumblebees in a realistic field setting

• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12792
• 发表时间: 2017-08-01
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
• 影响因子: 5.7
• 作者: Arce, Andres N.;David, Thomas I.;Gill, Richard J.
• 通讯作者: Gill, Richard J.

The first draft genomes of the ant Formica exsecta , and its Wolbachia endosymbiont reveal extensive gene transfer from endosymbiont to host

蚂蚁Formica exsecta及其沃尔巴克氏体内共生体的基因组初稿揭示了从内共生体到宿主的广泛基因转移。

• DOI: 10.1101/436691
• 发表时间: 2018
• 作者: Dhaygude K

Genomic Signatures of Recent Adaptation in a Wild Bumblebee.

• DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab366
• 发表时间: 2022-02-03
• 期刊: Molecular biology and evolution
• 影响因子: 10.7
• 作者: Colgan TJ;Arce AN;Gill RJ;Ramos Rodrigues A;Kanteh A;Duncan EJ;Li L;Chittka L;Wurm Y
• 通讯作者: Wurm Y

Foraging bumblebees acquire a preference for neonicotinoid-treated food with prolonged exposure.

觅食的大黄蜂在长时间接触新烟碱类处理过的食物时会产生偏好。

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.0655
• 发表时间: 2018-08-29
• 期刊: Proceedings. Biological sciences
• 作者: Arce AN;Ramos Rodrigues A;Yu J;Colgan TJ;Wurm Y;Gill RJ
• 通讯作者: Gill RJ

GeneValidator: identify problems with protein-coding gene predictions.

• DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btw015
• 发表时间: 2016-05-15
• 期刊: Bioinformatics (Oxford, England)
• 作者: Drăgan MA;Moghul I;Priyam A;Bustos C;Wurm Y
• 通讯作者: Wurm Y