{"id":7698,"date":"2017-12-20T15:11:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T15:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainableagriculturewaitrose.org\/?p=7698"},"modified":"2017-12-20T15:11:10","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T15:11:10","slug":"double-dose-for-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/2017\/12\/20\/double-dose-for-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"Double dose for bees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In a paper published today in the\u00a0Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences<\/em><\/a>, a team of researchers from Italy and the US record their study of the effects on honey bees of agriculture that exposes the insects to both poor nutrition (low quality nectar) and pesticides (neonicotinoids).<\/p>\n

\u201cOur results provide the first demonstration that these stressors can synergistically interact and cause significant harm to animal survival,\u201d report the researchers. \u201cThese findings have implications for pesticide risk-assessment and pollinator protection, and emphasise the importance of nutrition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rothamsted Research<\/a> was asked to comment on inquiries from the media:<\/strong>
\n\u201cHow does intensive agriculture reduce the quality\/quantity of nutrients for bees?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDoes this new research mean the threat to bees posed by pesticides could be greater than previously imagined?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat significance does this have for on-going policy debates around the use of pesticides?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Comment from Rothamsted Research<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jonathan Storkey<\/a>, Plant Ecologist and Leader of\u00a0Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems (ASSIST),<\/a>one of Rothamsted\u2019s five strategic research programmes:<\/strong>
\n\u201cThe paper provides further evidence for the negative effects on bees of exposure to sub-lethal concentrations of neonicotinoids. However, the novelty of the work is to put this effect in the context of additional stresses on bee survival and fitness, in this case decreasing nutritional quality of their food sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cInterestingly, sub-lethal and field realistic doses of neonicotinoids did not significantly reduce survival when bees were supplied with ample supplies of nutritionally rich food. It was only when bees were stressed by nutritionally poor diets that a synergistic negative effect of the pesticides was observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe results emphasise the need to consider the wider ecological requirements of non-target organisms when assessing the environmental risks of pesticides and the potential to mitigate harm through the provision of supplementary sources of pollinator habitat such as wild flower field margins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences<\/em>:\u00a0Neonicotinoid pesticides and nutritional stress synergistically reduce survival in honey bees <\/a>(Open Access).<\/p>\n

Article source: Rothamsted Research<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a paper published today in the\u00a0Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, a team of researchers from Italy and the US record their study of the effects on honey bees of agriculture that exposes the insects to both poor nutrition (low quality nectar) and pesticides (neonicotinoids). \u201cOur results provide the first demonstration that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,284,781,782,863,925,1004],"class_list":["post-7698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-bees","tag-crop-protection","tag-neonicotinoids","tag-neonics","tag-pesticide","tag-proceedings-of-the-royal-society-b","tag-rothamsted-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}