A short note on extreme sex ratio in solitary bees Osmia cornuta in semi-field trials testing the impact of neonicotinoids

Strobl, Verena; Albrecht, Matthias; Radford, Sarah; Wolf, Sarah; Neumann, Peter (2019). A short note on extreme sex ratio in solitary bees Osmia cornuta in semi-field trials testing the impact of neonicotinoids. Journal of apicultural research, 58(3), pp. 469-470. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/00218839.2018.1552238

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The widespread prophylactic use of neonicotinoids has severe negative effects on non-target organisms that provide
ecosystem services. Chronic neonicotinoid exposure led to a male-biased offspring sex ratio in the solitary bee species
Osmia bicornis in laboratory experiments, but semi-field or field data are largely lacking. Here, we used semi-field experiments
to investigate the potential impact of the neonicotinoid clothianidin on the sex ratio of the closely related species
Osmia cornuta. Male and female individuals of O. cornuta were held in flight cages with fully blooming winter oilseed
rape, treated or not with clothianidin. After hibernation, sex ratio of emerging offspring and overwintering mortality
was determined. A total of 191 male and 4 female, and 203 male and 2 female O. cornuta emerged in the control and
the clothianidin treatment, respectively, thereby clearly showing an extremely male-biased sex ratio. However, there
was no significant clothianidin treatment effect. As sex ratio was strongly biased in both, the clothianidin and the control
treatment, our data can obviously not explain the underlying mechanism. Such extreme sex ratios require more attention
in semi-field studies assessing the impacts of pesticides and other stressors on solitary bees.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH)
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) > Institute of Bee Health

UniBE Contributor:

Strobl, Verena, Neumann, Peter (B)

Subjects:

500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)
600 Technology > 630 Agriculture

ISSN:

0021-8839

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis

Language:

English

Submitter:

Anna Papach

Date Deposited:

16 Apr 2019 16:25

Last Modified:

29 Mar 2023 23:36

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/00218839.2018.1552238

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.127009

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/127009

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