Long-term field experiment on the impacts of the neonicotinoid dinotefuran and the organophosphate fenitrothion on a honeybee colony

Abstract

Summary Neonicotinoides are persistent and highly toxic pesticides that have become popular instead of organophosphates, being suspected to be a trigger of massive disappearance of bees that raises concern in the world. The evaluation of the long-term influence for a whole colony in the natural environment is, however, not established yet. In this paper, we conducted a long-term field experiment and found different impacts on honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera) in an apiary between the neonicotinoid dinotefuran and the organophosphate fenitrothion even though whose concentrations in sugar syrup provided for bees were adjusted to have nearly equal short-term effects on a honeybee based on the median lethal dose (LD50) as well as the insecticidal activity to exterminate stinkbugs. The colony with administration of dinotefran (dinotefuran colony) became extinct in 26 days, while the colony with administration of fenitrothion (fenitrothion colony) survived the administration for the same period. Furthermore, the fenitrothion colony succeeded to be alive for more than 293 days after administration, and also succeeded an overwintering, which indicates that colonies exposed to fenitrothion can recover after the exposure. Meanwhile, the dinotefuran colony became extinct even though the intake of dinotefuran was estimated to be comparable with that of fenitrothion in terms of the LD50 of a honeybee. Moreover, the colonies in our previous long-term experiments where dinotefuran with higher concentration were administered only for first few days (Yamada et al., 2012) became extinct in 104 days and 162 days, respectively. From these results, we speculate that colonies exposed to dinotefuran hardly recover from the damage because dinotefuran is much more persistent than fenitrothion and toxic foods stored in cells can affect a colony in a long period.

Solanum nigrum Fruit Extract Increases Toxicity of Fenitrothion—A Synthetic Insecticide, in the Mealworm Beetle Tenebrio molitor Larvae

“…Perhaps, that is the reason why the observed alterations were not statistically significant. Possibly, larvae might have used energy for detoxification from another source, such as trehalose from hemolymph [ 37 , 38 ], which level was not examined in our studies. In the case of the second variant of our experiment, each used concentration decreased glycogen level significantly.…”

Validation of quantitative real-time PCR reference genes and spatial expression profiles of detoxication-related genes under pesticide induction in honey bee, Apis mellifera

“…In the present study, to select suitable reference genes, we chose five candidate reference genes including 40S ribosomal protein S5 (RPS5), 40S ribosomal protein S18 (RPS18), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), ADP-ribosylation factor 1 (ARF1), and Rasrelated protein Rab-1A (RAD1a), which have been previously used as reference genes in honey bee studies [28,30,32]. Previous studies showed that honey bee is accidently exposed to various pesticides, and exposure of these pesticides negatively affect honey bee colonies, therefore, we chose seven pesticides (neonicotinoids: acetamiprid and imidacloprid, butanolide: flupyradifurone, organophosphate: fenitrothion, carbamate: carbaryl, formamidine: amitraz, and pyrethroid: bifenthrin) [33][34][35][36][37][38]. In addition, considering that different tissues might involve different detoxification mechanisms [39], we dissected five body parts (head, thorax, gut, fat body, and carcass) from honey bees treated with the seven pesticides.…”

N-benzyl 4,4-disubstituted piperidines as a potent class of influenza H1N1 virus inhibitors showing a novel mechanism of hemagglutinin fusion peptide interaction

“…At position 4, a halogen was clearly preferred (cfr. 5-fold higher activity of 2 compared to 1), since the analogues carrying a methyl (17) or nitro group (19) were less active, while trifluoromethyl 8 (18) was detrimental. In line with the positive effect of the 4-F atom, even slightly higher potency was seen with the 4-chloro analogue 20.…”

“…The choice of a piperidine heterocycle was motivated by its pivotal role in drug design [17]. Recently reported pharmacological uses of diverse substituted piperidine derivatives include coronary heart disease, anticancer, antivirals, and antinociceptives, among others [18][19][20][21][22]. In fact, one of the most frequently used non-aromatic ring systems in small molecule drugs is the piperidine ring [23], particularly 1,4disubstituted piperidine, due to its easy synthesis and lack of stereochemical issues.…”