Protection of wild pollinators in pesticide risk assessment and management.
Poster at the 26th annual meeting of SETAC Europe (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry), Nantes, France, on May, 22-26, 2016.
Latest research on biodiversity in agricultural landscapes suggests that pollinating insects (especially wild bees and butterflies) are not sufficiently protected from the effects of plant protection products under the current risk assessment and risk management schemes. This might be the result of uncertainties in existing risk assessment practice. Currently, only honey bees are tested in risk assessment and are assumed to be representative for all bee species. Other taxa of pollinators are not incorporated, so far. Moreover, the spatial dynamics of mobile arthropods (such as wild pollinators) which move between non-target area (e.g. buffer strip) and target area (field) are not taken into account. Becoming aware of these uncertainties European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a scientific opinion in 2015 addressing the state of the science on risk assessment of plant protection products for non-target arthropods. The preparation of a respective EFSA guideline is planned for 2017.
The research and development project Z 6 – 93 401/60 (FKZ: 3715 64 409 0), funded by the German Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt), aims to provide a basis for the revision of risk assessment and risk management schemes for the protection of wild pollinators from the effects of plant protection products. As part of this project, the current EFSA scientific opinions and draft guidance for the risk assessment of bees and terrestrial non-target arthropods will be reviewed for deficits with respect to the protection of wild pollinators. Furthermore, data on ecology, exposure and toxicological sensitivity of wild pollinators will be collected. Based on this data, ecologically tolerable thresholds will be derived and the relative sensitivity of different groups of wild pollinators in crop-specific landscape scenarios will be determined. Using this information, criteria for the risk assessment scheme on wild pollinating insects as well as recommendations for the improvement of potential risk management options will be developed. The regulatory background and the aim of the project as well as first findings are presented in this poster.