The binding sites in mammal nAChRs are different from those in insect nAChRs, and the neonicotinoid imidacloprid shows selective toxicity for insects over vertebrates. Some authors have also indicated some antagonistic action. This means that normal nerve impulses become impaired. Neonicotinoids are neuro-active insecticides which derive their toxicity to target species from acting mainly agonistically on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) on the post-synaptic membrane –. However, soon after the introduction of this new type of insecticides, concern rose that neonicotinoid residues in pollen and nectar might be harmful to honey bees, , and several studies have provided supporting evidence for this. Seed dressing makes spraying crops with insecticides unnecessary because the active substances are spread to all plant tissues when the plant grows. As a seed treatment they could be used in much lower quantities and they promised to be less polluting to the environment. When neonicotinoids were introduced as new, systemic, insecticides in the 1990s, they were supposed to be much more efficient than the older generation of insecticides. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Gravin van Bylandt Stichting (The Netherlands), Zukunft Stiftung Landwirtschaft (Germany), Beekeepers Union ABTB (Netherlands), Study Association Storm (Student Association Environmental Sciences Utrecht University) and citizens. This Support Fund has been created from donations by Adessium Foundation (The Netherlands), Act Beyond Trust (Japan), Universiteit Utrecht (Netherlands), Stichting Triodos Foundation (The Netherlands), Gesellschaft für Schmetterlingsschutz (Germany), M.A.O.C. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: Financial support was given to TVD and MVS by the Triodos Foundation’s Support Fund for Independent Research on Bee Decline and Systemic Pesticides. Received: OctoAccepted: MaPublished: May 1, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Van Dijk et al. PLoS ONE 8(5):Įditor: Nicolas Desneux, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), France In addition to the existing experimental evidence on the negative effects of imidacloprid on invertebrate life, our study, based on data from large-scale field monitoring during multiple years, shows that serious concern about the far-reaching consequences of the abundant use of imidacloprid for aquatic ecosystems is justified.Ĭitation: Van Dijk TC, Van Staalduinen MA, Van der Sluijs JP (2013) Macro-Invertebrate Decline in Surface Water Polluted with Imidacloprid. For aquatic ecosystem protection, two of the norms are not protective at all while the strictest norm of 13 ng l −1 (MTR) seems somewhat protective. Our data show that macrofauna abundance drops sharply between 13 and 67 ng l −1. We used the monitoring field data to test whether the existing three water quality norms for imidacloprid in the Netherlands are protective in real conditions. However, in accordance with previous research, a positive relationship was found for the order Actinedida. The order Odonata had a negative relationship very close to the significance threshold of 0.05 ( P = 0.051). A significant negative relationship was also found for the orders Amphipoda, Basommatophora, Diptera, Ephemeroptera and Isopoda, and for several species separately. Our regression analysis showed a significant negative relationship ( P<0.001) between macro-invertebrate abundance and imidacloprid concentration for all species pooled. Availability of extensive monitoring data on the abundance of aquatic macro-invertebrate species, and on imidacloprid concentrations in surface water in the Netherlands enabled us to test this hypothesis. Therefore we expected that surface water pollution with imidacloprid would negatively impact aquatic ecosystems. Several studies have demonstrated harmful effects of this neonicotinoid to a wide range of non-target species. Its concentration in surface water exceeds the water quality norms in many parts of the Netherlands. Imidacloprid is one of the most widely used insecticides in the world.
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