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Data from: Honey bee immune response to trace concentrations of clothianidin goes beyond the macronutrients found in artificial diets

Version 2 2025-03-31, 16:29
Version 1 2024-06-24, 16:44
dataset
posted on 2025-03-31, 16:29 authored by Pierre LauPierre Lau, Giovanni Tundo, Joel Caren, Weiqiang Zhang, Yu-Cheng Zhu

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) often encounter a variety of stressors in their environment, including poor nutrition and pesticides. These stressors interact and can be exacerbated in large-scale agroecosystems. We investigated how diets varying in macronutrient ratios can affect nurse bee susceptibility to pesticide stressors. Nurse bees were fed trace concentrations of clothianidin (CLO), a neonicotinoid insecticide known to have sublethal and lethal effects on honey bees, after newly emerged bees were given diets varying in proteins and lipids, a natural pollen diet, or sucrose solution diet. Bees given pollen had improved longevity, physiology, enzyme activity, and gene expression related to pesticide detoxification. The artificial diets helped improve bee health and physiology but did little to promote bee detoxification enzymes and genes. There was no effect of the trace CLO treatments on its own, but there was an interactive effect between our higher CLO treatment and poor nutrition on bee longevity and vitellogenin expression. Our results suggest that 1.) exposure to even trace concentrations of CLO can interact with poor nutrition to undermine adult bee health and 2.) macronutrients in artificial diets can help promote bee physiology, but other nutrients in pollen, such as potentially phytochemicals, are more directly linked honey bee tolerance to pesticide stress.


This work was supported by United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Research Project No. 6066-21000-001-000-D, Ecological Assessment and Mitigation Strategies to Reduce the Risks of Bees to Stressors in Southern Crop Ecosystems.

Funding

USDA-ARS: 6066-21000-001-000-D

History

Data contact name

Lau, Pierre, W.

Data contact email

pierre.lau@usda.gov

Publisher

Ag Data Commons

Temporal Extent Start Date

2022-06-01

Temporal Extent End Date

2024-03-31

Theme

  • Non-geospatial

ISO Topic Category

  • environment

National Agricultural Library Thesaurus terms

honey bees; Apis mellifera; insecticide resistance; neonicotinoid insecticides; agroecosystems; clothianidin; sublethal effects; nutrient deficiencies; proteins; lipids; bee pollen; phytochemicals; metabolic detoxification

OMB Bureau Code

  • 005:18 - Agricultural Research Service

OMB Program Code

  • 005:040 - National Research

ARS National Program Number

  • 305

ARIS Log Number

0000415529

Pending citation

  • No

Public Access Level

  • Public