| Title: | Modality-specific impairment of learning by a neonicotinoid pesticide |
| Author(s): | Muth F; Francis JS; Leonard AS; |
| Address: | "Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, 2415 Speedway, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Department of Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1744-957X (Electronic) 1744-9561 (Print) 1744-9561 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Neonicotinoid pesticides can impair bees' ability to learn and remember information about flowers, critical for effective foraging. Although these effects on cognition may contribute to broader effects on health and performance, to date they have largely been assayed in simplified protocols that consider learning in a single sensory modality, usually olfaction. Given that real flowers display a variety of potentially useful signals, we assessed the effects of acute neonicotinoid exposure on multimodal learning in free-flying bumblebees. We found that neonicotinoid consumption differentially impacted learning of floral stimuli, impairing scent, but not colour, learning. These findings raise questions about the mechanisms by which pesticides might differentially impair sensory systems, with implications for how neonicotinoids affect multiple aspects of bee ecology" |
| Keywords: | Animals Bees Flowers *Insecticides Learning Neonicotinoids Nitro Compounds *Pesticides Bombus impatiens bumblebee cognition imidacloprid; |
| Notes: | "MedlineMuth, Felicity Francis, Jacob S Leonard, Anne S eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. England 2019/08/01 Biol Lett. 2019 Jul 26; 15(7):20190359. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2019.0359. Epub 2019 Jul 31" |
