| Title: | Biomonitoring for wide area surveying in landmine detection using honeybees and optical sensing |
| Author(s): | Gillanders RN; Glackin JM; Babic Z; Mustra M; Simic M; Kezic N; Turnbull GA; Filipi J; |
| Address: | "Organic Semiconductor Centre, SUPA, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SS, Scotland. Electronic address: rg89@st-andrews.ac.uk. Organic Semiconductor Centre, SUPA, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SS, Scotland. Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Banja Luka, Patre 5, 78000, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. University of Zagreb, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, Vukeliceva 4, HR, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia. University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, Svetosimunska Cesta 25, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia. Department of Ecology, Agronomy and Aquaculture, University of Zadar, Trg Kneza Viseslava 9, 23000, Zadar, Croatia. Electronic address: jfilipi@unizd.hr" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.129646 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1879-1298 (Electronic) 0045-6535 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Humanitarian demining is a worldwide effort and the range of climates and environments prevent any one detection method being suitable for all sites, so more tools are required for safe and efficient explosives sensing. Landmines emit a chemical flux over time, and honeybees can collect the trace residues of explosives (as particles or as vapour) on their body hairs. This capability was exploited using a passive method allowing the honeybees to freely forage in a mined area, where trace explosives present in the environment stuck to the honeybee body, which were subsequently transferred onto an adsorbent material for analysis by a fluorescent polymer sensor. Potential false positive sources were investigated, namely common bee pheromones, the anti-varroa pesticide Amitraz, and the environment around a clean apiary, and no significant response was found to any from the sensor. The mined site gave a substantial response in the optical sensor films, with quenching efficiencies of up to 38%. A model was adapted to estimate the mass of explosives returned to the colony, which may be useful for estimating the number of mines in a given area" |
| Keywords: | Animals Bees Biological Monitoring *Explosive Agents Pheromones *Varroidae Apis mellifera carnica Environmental modelling Honeybee Luminescence quenching Nitroaromatic REST sampling; |
| Notes: | "MedlineGillanders, Ross N Glackin, James Me Babic, Zdenka Mustra, Mario Simic, Mitar Kezic, Nikola Turnbull, Graham A Filipi, Janja eng England 2021/01/26 Chemosphere. 2021 Jun; 273:129646. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.129646. Epub 2021 Jan 18" |
