The Impact of a Pesticide Ban on a Pollinator Community

正在解决的重要环境挑战是：传粉者每年提供价值174至3460亿GB的农作物授粉服务，90%的开花植物依赖动物传粉服务。虽然杀虫剂对这项服务的影响在世界范围内引起了极大的关注，但关于这一主题的大多数研究在范围和环境现实主义方面都受到限制，大多数研究仅限于实验室条件下的单一传粉者物种。使用田间试验来测试农药影响的研究仍然非常罕见，使用的传粉者种类非常少(例如n=3)，并且限于农作物田地的规模，这通常是可行地可以操纵的最大面积单位(例如Woodcock等人)。2017DOI：10.1126/Science ence.aaa1190&Rundlof等人。2015年DOI：10.1038/Nature14420)。然而，在根西岛--一个正在禁用杀虫剂的岛屿--我们有一个独特的一次性机会，可以在整个生态系统的规模上测试杀虫剂对整个传粉群落的影响。此外，我们在附近复制岛屿作为对照，我们已经收集了大量关于授粉者种群密度和群落结构的基线数据。我们申请赠款的目的是量化杀虫剂禁令对授粉者群落的影响，并测试对更广泛的食物网的级联影响。这项禁令正在根西岛实施，我们将使用邻近的三个岛屿(泽西岛、奥尔德尼岛和萨克岛)作为控制。利用当地非政府组织提供的一小笔赠款和后勤支持，我们收集了大量的4年基线数据集。如果我们的研究计划得到资助，我们将拥有一个独特的七年连续数据，涵盖根西岛和我们的控制岛农药禁令之前、期间和之后的一段时间。首先，我们将量化农药禁令对黄尾大黄蜂、五种飞蝇和两种蛾子种群的影响，预测禁令后所有这些指示物种的数量都会增加。其次，我们将量化禁令对传粉者群落结构的影响，预测对杀虫剂特别敏感的传粉者群体将出现更大幅度的反弹。第三，我们将测试禁令对与传粉者相关的更广泛社区的连锁正面好处，特别是它们的专业寄生蜂和多面手蝙蝠捕食者。最后，我们将使用我们的成果和管理建议，为地方、国家和国际层面的影响提供信息和促进影响。方法：我们的现场站点是海峡群岛上的四个岛屿--根西岛和三个毗邻的控制岛--它们靠近法国海岸线，由两个自治的英国皇家属地组成。我们将使用前后受控影响的设计来采样传粉者，这种设计将多个对照和参照点与农药禁令前后的多年采样相结合。这使我们能够将禁令的影响与其他众所周知的影响昆虫种群的变量区分开来，最明显的是天气。事实上，我们的基线数据显示，我们可以检测到授粉者数量增加了10%，这是这一研究领域的游戏规则改变者。摘要：总体而言，我们严格的采样方案、我们独特的岛屿系统，以及我们拥有禁令前数据的事实，将使我们能够以无与伦比的规模推进农药对传粉者影响的知识前沿。我们创新的社区层面的方法以前从未尝试过，并将导致突破性的科学发现。虽然在这种规模下检测生态群落的变化是复杂和高风险的，但我们的基线数据表明我们的方法是非常可行的。

THE IMPORTANT ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE BEING ADDRESSED: Pollinators provide a crop pollination service worth £174 to £346 billion each year and 90% of flowering plants depend on animal-mediated pollinator services. While the impact of pesticides on this service is a cause of significant concern worldwide, most research on this topic has been limited in scope and environmental realism, with the majority of studies limited to a single pollinator species under laboratory conditions. Studies which used field trials to test pesticide impacts remain very rare, use very small numbers of pollinator species (e.g. n=3) and are limited to the scale of crop fields, which are generally the largest units of area that can feasibly be manipulated (e.g., Woodcock et al. 2017 doi: 10.1126/science.aaa1190 & Rundlof et al. 2015 doi:10.1038/nature14420). However, in Guernsey - an island undergoing a pesticide ban - we have a unique one-off opportunity to test the impact of pesticides on a whole pollinator community at the scale of an entire ecological system. Moreover, we have replicate islands nearby to use as controls and we have already collected a considerable quantity of baseline data on pollinator population density and community structure prior to the ban.THE AIM OF OUR GRANT APPLICATION is to quantify the impact of a pesticide ban on a pollinator community and test for cascading impacts on the wider food web. The ban is being implemented on the island of Guernsey, and we will use three neighbouring islands (Jersey, Alderney and Sark) as controls. Using a small grant along with logistical support provided by a local NGO, we have collected a substantial 4-year baseline dataset. If our research proposal is funded, we will have a unique seven-year run of continuous data covering the period before, during and after the pesticide ban on Guernsey and our control islands.THERE ARE FOUR OBJECTIVES TO OUR PROJECT. First, we will quantify the impact of the pesticide ban on populations of the buff tailed bumblebee, five species of hoverfly and two species of moth, predicting increases in all these indicator species following the ban. Second, we will quantify the impact of the ban on pollinator community structure, predicting a greater rebound in pollinator groups which are known to be particularly sensitive to pesticides. Third, we will test for cascading positive benefits of the ban on the wider community associated with pollinators, specifically their specialist parasitoids and generalist bat predators. Finally, we will use our results and management recommendations to inform and facilitate impact at a local, national, and international level. METHODS: Our field sites are four islands in the Channel Island archipelago - Guernsey and three adjacent control islands - which are close to the French coastline and made up of two self-governing British Crown Dependencies. We will use a Before-After-Controlled-Impact design to sample pollinators, which combines multiple control and reference sites with multi-year sampling before and after the pesticide ban. This allows us to distinguish the impact of the ban from other variables which are well known to affect insect populations, most obviously the weather. Indeed, our baseline data shows we can detect an increase in pollinator abundance as small as 10%, which is a game changer in this field of research. SUMMARY: Overall, the combination of our rigorous sampling protocols, our unique island system, and the fact that we have the pre-ban data "in the bag", will enable us to advance the frontiers of knowledge on the impact of pesticides on pollinators at an unmatched scale. Our innovative community level approach has not been attempted before and will lead to ground-breaking scientific discovery. Although it is complex and high-risk to detect changes in ecological communities at such scale, our baseline data demonstrates that our approach is eminently feasible.