Do novel insecticides pose a threat to beneficial insects?

Systemic insecticides, such as neonicotinoids, are a major contributor
towards beneficial insect declines. This has led to bans and restrictions
on neonicotinoid use globally, most noticeably in the Europe Union, where
four commonly-used neonicotinoids are banned from outside agricultural
use. While this might seem like a victory for conservation, restrictions
on neonicotinoid use will only benefit insect populations if newly
emerging insecticides do not have similar negative impacts on beneficial
insects. Flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor are two novel insecticides that
have been registered for use globally, including within the European
Union. These novel insecticides differ in their chemical class, but share
the same mode of action as neonicotinoids, raising the question as to
whether they have similar sub-lethal impacts on beneficial insects. Here,
we conducted a systematic literature review of the potential sub-lethal
impacts of these novel insecticides on beneficial insects, quantifying
these effects with a meta-analysis. We demonstrate that both
flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor have significant sub-lethal impacts on
beneficial insects at field-realistic levels of exposure. These results
confirm that bans on neonicotinoid use will only protect beneficial
insects if paired with significant changes to the agrochemical regulatory
process. A failure to modify the regulatory process will result in a
continued decline of beneficial insects, and the ecosystem services, on
which global food production relies.