Guilherme Duarte Figueiredo de Souza, Isabella Cristina de Castro Lippi, Iloran do Rosário Corrêa Moreira, Suelen Matos da Silva, Jaine da Luz Scheffer, Aline Astolfi, Renato Agostinho Arruda, Ricardo de Oliveira Orsi
{"title":"Is sulfoxaflor a safe alternative to neonicotinoids for Apis mellifera? A systematic review","authors":"Guilherme Duarte Figueiredo de Souza, Isabella Cristina de Castro Lippi, Iloran do Rosário Corrêa Moreira, Suelen Matos da Silva, Jaine da Luz Scheffer, Aline Astolfi, Renato Agostinho Arruda, Ricardo de Oliveira Orsi","doi":"10.1007/s13592-025-01175-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite their importance to the ecosystem, global food production, and the beekeeping industry, honey bees are systematically threatened by multiple factors. Industrial agriculture plays an important role in such a process challenging both managed and wild bees. While the impacts of various insecticide classes on bees are well-documented, neonicotinoids are closely associated with colony losses, prompting their ban in several countries. Sulfoxaflor, a sulfoximine-based insecticide, has been proposed as a replacement for neonicotinoids like imidacloprid, targeting nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) through a distinct binding mechanism and allegedly posing lower risks to birds, mammals, and humans. This review systematically assesses sulfoxaflor’s effects on <i>Apis mellifera</i>, utilizing data from PubMed, Web of Science, Jstor, Scopus, Google Scholar, CORE, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for studies published between 2019 and 2024. Nineteen studies were selected, excluding research on non-<i>Apis</i> bees or combined formulations. Findings revealed diverse sublethal impacts on honey bees, including metabolic, morphological, behavioral, and gene expression alterations. Even though sulfoxaflor is less toxic than neonicotinoids, it cannot be deemed a safe alternative for honey bees, especially once that many effects have been reported in both classes of pesticides.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":8078,"journal":{"name":"Apidologie","volume":"56 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Apidologie","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-025-01175-y","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENTOMOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite their importance to the ecosystem, global food production, and the beekeeping industry, honey bees are systematically threatened by multiple factors. Industrial agriculture plays an important role in such a process challenging both managed and wild bees. While the impacts of various insecticide classes on bees are well-documented, neonicotinoids are closely associated with colony losses, prompting their ban in several countries. Sulfoxaflor, a sulfoximine-based insecticide, has been proposed as a replacement for neonicotinoids like imidacloprid, targeting nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) through a distinct binding mechanism and allegedly posing lower risks to birds, mammals, and humans. This review systematically assesses sulfoxaflor’s effects on Apis mellifera, utilizing data from PubMed, Web of Science, Jstor, Scopus, Google Scholar, CORE, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for studies published between 2019 and 2024. Nineteen studies were selected, excluding research on non-Apis bees or combined formulations. Findings revealed diverse sublethal impacts on honey bees, including metabolic, morphological, behavioral, and gene expression alterations. Even though sulfoxaflor is less toxic than neonicotinoids, it cannot be deemed a safe alternative for honey bees, especially once that many effects have been reported in both classes of pesticides.
尽管蜜蜂对生态系统、全球粮食生产和养蜂业都很重要,但它们正受到多种因素的系统性威胁。工业化农业在这一过程中发挥着重要作用,对管理蜜蜂和野生蜜蜂都提出了挑战。虽然各种杀虫剂对蜜蜂的影响有充分的记录,但新烟碱类杀虫剂与蜂群损失密切相关,因此在一些国家禁止了它们。亚砜虫胺是一种以亚砜亚胺为基础的杀虫剂,已被提议作为咪虫啉等新烟碱类杀虫剂的替代品,通过一种独特的结合机制靶向烟碱乙酰胆碱受体(nachr),据称对鸟类、哺乳动物和人类的风险较低。本综述系统评估了亚砜对蜜蜂Apis的影响,利用了2019年至2024年间发表的PubMed、Web of Science、Jstor、Scopus、谷歌Scholar、CORE和DOAJ的研究数据。选择了19项研究,不包括对非api蜜蜂或组合配方的研究。研究结果揭示了对蜜蜂的多种亚致死影响,包括代谢、形态、行为和基因表达的改变。尽管亚砜的毒性比新烟碱类杀虫剂小,但它不能被认为是一种对蜜蜂安全的替代品,尤其是在这两类杀虫剂都有许多影响的报道之后。
期刊介绍:
Apidologie is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the biology of insects belonging to the superfamily Apoidea.
Its range of coverage includes behavior, ecology, pollination, genetics, physiology, systematics, toxicology and pathology. Also accepted are papers on the rearing, exploitation and practical use of Apoidea and their products, as far as they make a clear contribution to the understanding of bee biology.
Apidologie is an official publication of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) and Deutscher Imkerbund E.V. (D.I.B.)