Honey bees and mason bees as biological indicators of landscape pesticide loads: Different results but similar conclusions

Abstract

Agricultural environments, including crop and non-crop areas, often provide important pollen and nectar resources for managed and wild bees. However, these resources may be contaminated with pesticides detrimental to bees and other non-target organisms, including humans. Differences in life-history traits among bee species influence food resource exploitation and pesticide exposure. This study assesses the potential of honey bees (Apis mellifera) and mason bees (Osmia), two bee species with highly contrasting functional traits, as biological indicators of pesticide exposure in 34 Italian agricultural farms. Pollen loads of both species were used to identify pollen species collected and to analyse multi-residue levels of pesticides. Pesticide risk indexes were calculated for honey bees, mason bees and humans. In mason bees, pesticide risk was not influenced by plant diversity. In agreement with their pollen preferences and short foraging ranges, mason bees collected a high proportion of pollen from flowers of the target crop. Conversely, pesticide risk decreased with increasing pollen diversity in honey bees. In agreement with their generalist foraging habits and long foraging ranges honey bees collected a greater diversity of pollen species and a lower proportion of target crop pollen. Although honey bees and mason bees showed similar toxic loads and pesticide composition, at a field scale pesticide risk of one species is not a good indicator of the risk to the other species. Our study confirms that bees in agricultural environments are pervasively exposed to multi-residue pesticide loads. Exposure is conditioned by specific bee traits but is also highly context-dependent.

Keywords

• Apis mellifera
• Osmia bicornis
• Landscape ecotoxicology
• Environmental risk assessment
• Bioindicators