WPI Researchers Find Link Between Bee Decline And Pesticide

WORCESTER, MA—There is growing evidence that pesticides might be contributing to the decline of bumblebees across North America. Now, a new study is revealing that daily consumption, even in small doses, of a popular pesticide class called neonicotinoids reduces the survival of queen and male bees, which are critical to the survival of wild populations.

Bee specialist, professor and Framingham native Rob Gegear is conducting the first study that examines how oral exposure to neonicotinoids – an ingredient in hardware store pesticides - affects bumblebees. Most recently, he's found that even a small intake of "safe" doses of these pesticides decreases the survival of bumblebees, and messes with their genes, their ability to move, eat, reproduce, remember, and ward off disease.

According to Gegear, with bumblebees dying out, native flowering plants, and the animals that use those plants for food and shelter, are declining too.

"If the problem gets out of hand, we could be looking at ecosystem collapses across the world, and humans will pay the price," he said.

The study also found that exposure to the chemicals alters the expression of genes regulating biological functions such as locomotion, reproduction, immunity, and learning and memory, suggesting that neonicotinoids may be having a greater negative impact on the viability of wild bumblebee populations than previously thought, said the release.

Gegear's study took a look at the impact of the pesticide exposure throughout the whole life cycle of the bee. The study (“One size does not fit all: Caste and sex differences in the response of bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) to chronic oral neonicotinoid exposure”), by Gegear, who is the assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and Melissa Mobley, who worked on the research as a PhD candidate at WPI (she received her degree in May 2017), was published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

“There are approximately 4,000 bee species native to North America,” said Gegear in a statement, “and many are in rapid decline. For example two of the 10 bumblebee species that were historically present in Massachusetts are now gone and a few more are headed in the same direction. As our bumblebees and other native pollinators disappear, so too will our native flowering plants and the animals that use them for food, shelter, and nesting sites."

You can read more about this study and research at this link.

Photo, used with permission via WPI: PhD student Melissa Mobley and biologist Robert Gegear examine bumblebees that have been fed small doses of a neonicotinoid pesticide as part of a study of the effects of the compounds on the long-term stability and survival of bee populations.