LAUSR

Plant protection products, including insecticides, are important for global food production, but can have adverse effects on non-target organisms including bees. Historically, research investigating such effects has focused mainly on the honeybee (Apis mellifera), while less information is available for non-Apis bees. Consequently, a comprehensive hazard (sensitivity) assessment for the majority of bees is lacking, which in turn hinders accurate risk characterization and consequently bee protection. Interspecies sensitivity extrapolation based on body weight might be a way to improve the situation, but in the past such approaches did often ignore the phylogenetic background of species used, which in turn potentially reduces the robustness of such results. Published acute contact sensitivity data (LD50 /bee) of bees to insecticides, their body weight and phylogenetic background were used to build interspecies scaling models (ISMs) to predict bee sensitivity based on their weight. The results indicate that 1) bee body weight is a predictor of acute contact bee sensitivity to a range of insecticides and 2) highlights that phylogeny (non-independence of datapoints) needs to be considered in cross species analysis, although it not always confounds the observed effects. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.