Inferring pesticide toxicity to honey bees from a field‐based feeding study using a colony model and Bayesian inference
Abstract
Abstract Honey bees are crucial pollinators for agricultural crops but are threatened by a multitude of stressors including exposure to pesticides. Linking our understanding of how pesticides affect individual bees to colony‐level responses is challenging because colonies show emergent properties based on complex internal processes and interactions among individual bees. Agent‐based models that simulate honey bee colony dynamics may be a tool for scaling between individual and colony effects of a pesticide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are developing the VarroaPop + Pesticide model, which simulates the dynamics of honey bee colonies and how they respond to multiple stressors, including weather, Varroa mites, and pesticides. To evaluate this model, we used Approximate Bayesian Computation to fit field data from an empirical study where honey bee colonies were fed the insecticide clothianidin. This allowed us to reproduce colony feeding study data by simulating colony demography and mortality from ingestion of contaminated food. We found that VarroaPop + Pesticide was able to fit general trends in colony population size and structure and reproduce colony declines from increasing clothianidin exposure. The model underestimated adverse effects at low exposure (36 µg/kg), however, and overestimated recovery at the highest exposure level (140 µg/kg), formore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
- Office of Research and Development Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 109 TW Alexander Drive Durham North Carolina 27709 USA
- Crystal River Consulting LLC 1909 Stonecastle Drive Keller Texas 76262 USA
- USDA‐ARS Carl Hayden Bee Research Center 2000 East Allen Road Tucson Arizona 85719 USA
- USDA‐Office of Pest Management Policy 1400 Independence Avenue SW Washington D.C. 20250 USA
- Office of Pesticide Programs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington D.C. 20460 USA
- Office of Research and Development Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 109 TW Alexander Drive Durham North Carolina 27709 USA
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); USEPA; USDA
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1818802
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1818804; OSTI ID: 1904993
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0014664; DW8992298301
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Ecological Applications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Ecological Applications Journal Volume: 31 Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 1051-0761
- Publisher:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; approximate Bayesian computation; Bayesian inference; colony feeding study; colony models; honey bees (Apis mellifera); pesticides; risk assessment
Citation Formats
Minucci, Jeffrey M., Curry, Robert, DeGrandi‐Hoffman, Gloria, Douglass, Cameron, Garber, Kris, and Purucker, S. Thomas. Inferring pesticide toxicity to honey bees from a field‐based feeding study using a colony model and Bayesian inference. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1002/eap.2442.
Minucci, Jeffrey M., Curry, Robert, DeGrandi‐Hoffman, Gloria, Douglass, Cameron, Garber, Kris, & Purucker, S. Thomas. Inferring pesticide toxicity to honey bees from a field‐based feeding study using a colony model and Bayesian inference. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2442
Minucci, Jeffrey M., Curry, Robert, DeGrandi‐Hoffman, Gloria, Douglass, Cameron, Garber, Kris, and Purucker, S. Thomas. Sun .
"Inferring pesticide toxicity to honey bees from a field‐based feeding study using a colony model and Bayesian inference". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2442.
@article{osti_1818802,
title = {Inferring pesticide toxicity to honey bees from a field‐based feeding study using a colony model and Bayesian inference},
author = {Minucci, Jeffrey M. and Curry, Robert and DeGrandi‐Hoffman, Gloria and Douglass, Cameron and Garber, Kris and Purucker, S. Thomas},
abstractNote = {Abstract Honey bees are crucial pollinators for agricultural crops but are threatened by a multitude of stressors including exposure to pesticides. Linking our understanding of how pesticides affect individual bees to colony‐level responses is challenging because colonies show emergent properties based on complex internal processes and interactions among individual bees. Agent‐based models that simulate honey bee colony dynamics may be a tool for scaling between individual and colony effects of a pesticide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are developing the VarroaPop + Pesticide model, which simulates the dynamics of honey bee colonies and how they respond to multiple stressors, including weather, Varroa mites, and pesticides. To evaluate this model, we used Approximate Bayesian Computation to fit field data from an empirical study where honey bee colonies were fed the insecticide clothianidin. This allowed us to reproduce colony feeding study data by simulating colony demography and mortality from ingestion of contaminated food. We found that VarroaPop + Pesticide was able to fit general trends in colony population size and structure and reproduce colony declines from increasing clothianidin exposure. The model underestimated adverse effects at low exposure (36 µg/kg), however, and overestimated recovery at the highest exposure level (140 µg/kg), for the adult and pupa endpoints, suggesting that mechanisms besides oral toxicity‐induced mortality may have played a role in colony declines. The VarroaPop + Pesticide model estimates an adult oral LD 50 of 18.9 ng/bee (95% CI 10.1–32.6) based on the simulated feeding study data, which falls just above the 95% confidence intervals of values observed in laboratory toxicology studies on individual bees. Overall, our results demonstrate a novel method for analyzing colony‐level data on pesticide effects on bees and making inferences on pesticide toxicity to individual bees.},
doi = {10.1002/eap.2442},
journal = {Ecological Applications},
number = 8,
volume = 31,
place = {United States},
year = {Sun Sep 05 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Sun Sep 05 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}
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