Resistance of developing honeybee larvae during chronic exposure to dietary nicotine

The effects of pesticides on honeybee larvae are less understood than for adult bees, even though larvae are chronically exposed to pesticide residues that accumulate in comb and food stores in the hive. We investigated how exposure to a plant alkaloid, nicotine, affects survival, growth and body composition of honeybee larvae. Larvae of Apis mellifera scutellata were reared in vitro and fed throughout development on standard diets with nicotine included at concentrations from 0 to 1000 lg/100 g diet. Overall mortality across all nicotine treatments was low, averaging 9.8% at the prepupal stage and 18.1% at the white-eyed pupal stage, but survival was significantly reduced by nicotine. The mass of prepupae and white-eyed pupae was not affected by nicotine. In terms of body composition, nicotine affected water content but did not influence either protein or lipid stores of white-eyed pupae. We attribute the absence of consistent negative effects of dietary nicotine to detoxification mechanisms in developing honeybees, which enable them to resist both natural and synthetic xenobiotics.

关于农药对蜜蜂幼虫的影响相较于成年蜜蜂而言，理解程度较低，尽管幼虫长期暴露于蜂巢中巢脾和食物储存中累积的农药残留。本研究旨在探讨植物生物碱尼古丁对蜜蜂幼虫的存活、生长及体组成的影响。在体外培育的Apis mellifera scutellata幼虫被以含有从0至1000 lg/100 g 饮食浓度的尼古丁的标准饮食喂养。总体死亡率在所有尼古丁处理中均较低，在预蛹阶段平均为9.8%，在白眼蛹阶段为18.1%，但尼古丁显著降低了幼虫的存活率。尼古丁对预蛹和白眼蛹的重量没有影响。就体组成而言，尼古丁影响了水分含量，但对白眼蛹的蛋白质或脂质储存没有影响。我们推测，由于发育中的蜜蜂具有的解毒机制，它们能够抵抗自然和合成的异生物，因此饮食中尼古丁的持续负面效应并不明显。