Meeting Abstract
Pesticides are routinely employed in modern agriculture, harming beneficial pollinators in addition to their intended targets. Bees and flies are among the main pollinators of plants worldwide, and through their foraging activities, they are especially at risk to chronic pesticide exposure. Using color pan traps (blue, white, and yellow) we assessed whether bees and flies are attracted to or repelled by field-realistic concentrations of four commonly used pesticides (6ml/L of Thiacloprid; 0.4ml/L imidacloprid; 0.75ml/L deltamethrin; 0.3g/L acetamiprid). Studies were conducted during two consecutive summers (2014 and 2015) in 27 unmanaged urban habitats at Uludağ University (Bursa, Turkey). A total of 5,756 arthropods were collected in both years. Diptera and Hymenoptera were the most common insect orders. In both years, nearly 50 native bees were collected, which accounted for less than 30% of the captured specimens; flies accounted for 22 and 43% in 2014 and 2015. Preliminary analyses show no significant differences in the number of bees collected between the control and the treatment for each pesticide and no effect between the pesticide and color of pan-trap used. This is not the case for flies, a group which showed a variety of responses (avoidance or attraction) to each pesticide. Thus, bees at the community level might be more vulnerable to the effects of pesticide exposure than flies.
