New information on the lethal and sublethal effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on organisms is presented in this review, complementing the previous Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) in 2015. The high toxicity of these systemic insecticides to invertebrates has been confirmed and expanded to include more species and compounds. Most of the recent research has focused on bees and the sublethal and ecological impacts these insecticides have on pollinators. Toxic effects on other invertebrate taxa also covered predatory and parasitoid natural enemies and aquatic arthropods. Little new information has been gathered on soil organisms. The impact on marine and coastal ecosystems is still largely uncharted. The chronic lethality of neonicotinoids to insects and crustaceans, and the strengthened evidence that these chemicals also impair the immune system and reproduction, highlights the dangers of this particular insecticidal class (neonicotinoids and fipronil), with the potential to greatly decrease populations of arthropods in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Sublethal effects on fish, reptiles, frogs, birds, and mammals are also reported, showing a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity of these insecticides in vertebrates and their deleterious impacts on growth, reproduction, and neurobehaviour of most of the species tested. This review concludes with a summary of impacts on the ecosystem services and functioning, particularly on pollination, soil biota, and aquatic invertebrate communities, thus reinforcing the previous WIA conclusions (van der Sluijs et al. 2015).

/pdf/an-update-of-the-worldwide-integrated-assessment-wia-on-56y8fii1bv.pdf

An update of the Worldwide Integrated Assessment (WIA) on systemic insecticides. Part 2: impacts on organisms and ecosystems.

Grape growers in California utilize a variety of biological, cultural, and chemical approaches for the management of insect and mite pests in vineyards. This combination of strategies falls within the integrated pest management (IPM) framework, which is considered to be the dominant pest management paradigm in vineyards. While the adoption of IPM has led to notable and significant reductions in the environmental impacts of grape production, some growers are becoming interested in the use of an explicitly non-pesticide approach to pest management that is broadly referred to as ecologically-based pest management (EBPM). Essentially a subset of IPM strategies, EBPM places strong emphasis on practices such as habitat management, natural enemy augmentation and conservation, and animal integration. Here, we summarize the range and known efficacy of EBPM practices utilized in California vineyards, followed by a discussion of research needs and future policy directions. EBPM should in no way be seen in opposition, or as an alternative to the IPM framework. Rather, the further development of more reliable EBPM practices could contribute to the robustness of IPM strategies available to grape growers.

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/8/4/108/pdf

Review of Ecologically-Based Pest Management in California Vineyards.

BACKGROUND
Insecticide sprays used for ant control cause environmental contamination. Liquid bait is a safe and effective alternative, but it requires bait stations to dispense the toxicant. We developed a biodegradable hydrogel to deliver liquid bait obviating the need for bait stations.

RESULTS
Alginate hydrogel beads with preferred rigidity and maximum hydration in 25% sucrose solution were engineered by optimizing a crosslinking process. The moisture content of the substrate on which the beads were placed and the relative atmospheric humidity significantly influenced water loss dynamics of the hydrated hydrogel beads. Laboratory choice studies indicated that hydrated hydrogel beads had reduced palatability to foraging ants when they lost ≥ 50% water. An enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) indicated that the insecticide thiamethoxam added to sucrose solution was absorbed into the hydrogel beads. Hydrogel beads conditioned in sucrose solution with 1 mg L−1 thiamethoxam provided complete control of all castes of Argentine ant Linepithema humile (Mayr) colony by 14 days post-treatment in the laboratory trial and provided a 79% reduction in ant activity after 8 weeks in the field trial.

CONCLUSION
Alginate hydrogel beads provided an effective delivery system for liquid baits laced with low concentrations of insecticide to control Argentine ants.

Development of an alginate hydrogel to deliver aqueous bait for pest ant management.

Here, we review the literature on the development and application of hydrogel compounds for insect pest management. Researchers have used hydrogel compounds for the past few decades to achieve the controlled release of various contact insecticides, but in recent years, hydrogel compounds have also been used to absorb and deliver targeted concentrations of toxicants within a liquid bait to manage insect pests. The highly absorbent hydrogel acts as a controlled-release formulation that keeps the liquid bait available and palatable to the target pests. This review discusses the use of various types of hydrogel compounds in pest management based on different environmental settings (e.g., agricultural, urban, and natural areas), pest systems (e.g., different taxa), and modes of insecticide delivery (e.g., spray vs bait). Due to their unique physicochemical properties, hydrogel compounds have great potential to be developed into new and efficacious pest management strategies with minimal environmental impact. We will also discuss the future research and development of hydrogels in this review.

/pdf/hydrogels-from-controlled-release-to-a-new-bait-delivery-for-1f9rh5l304.pdf

Hydrogels: From Controlled Release to a New Bait Delivery for Insect Pest Management.

The widespread prophylactic usage of neonicotinoid insecticides has a clear impact on non-target organisms However, the possible effects of long-term exposure on soil-dwelling organisms are still poorly understood especially for social insects with long-living queens Here, we show that effects of chronic exposure to the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on black garden ant colonies, Lasius niger, become visible before the second overwintering Queens and workers differed in the residue-ratio of thiamethoxam to its metabolite clothianidin, suggesting that queens may have a superior detoxification system Even though thiamethoxam did not affect queen mortality, neonicotinoid-exposed colonies showed a reduced number of workers and larvae indicating a trade-off between detoxification and fertility Since colony size is a key for fitness, our data suggest long-term impacts of neonicotinoids on these organisms This should be accounted for in future environmental and ecological risk assessments of neonicotinoid applications to prevent irreparable damages to ecosystems

/pdf/long-term-effects-of-neonicotinoid-insecticides-on-ants-7tmieuh86d.pdf

Long-term effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on ants.

The development of effective baits to control the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr), has been problematic because foragers prefer sweet liquids, while many toxicants are insoluble in water and liquid baits are generally difficult to deliver. The incorporation of thiamethoxam and sucrose solutions into a water-absorbing polyacrylamide hydrogel provides a unique and novel carrier and method of application for liquid baits. Formulations of thiamethoxam affected the size of the hydrogels, and sucrose solutions containing 0.0003% technical thiamethoxam provided hydrogels as large as those made with 25% sucrose solution or deionized water. Concentrations of thiamethoxam as low as 0.000075% in the hydrogels provided 50% kill of workers within 3 d in a laboratory setting. In small colony studies, baiting with 0.00015 and 0.000075% thiamethoxam hydrogels provided 100% mortality of workers and queens within 8 d. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay indicated that thiamethoxam was absorbed into the interior of the polyacrylamide matrix. The water loss rates of the hydrogels were dependent upon the relative humidity. Polyacrylamide hydrogels with >50% water loss were less attractive to ants. Field studies in highly infested areas indicated that concentrations of 0.0006 or 0.0018% thiamethoxam were more effective than 0.00015%. Hydrogels may provide a cost-effective alternative to providing aqueous baits to control Argentine ants.

https://bioone.org/journals/Journal-of-Economic-Entomology/volume-108/issue-3/tov044/Laboratory-and-Field-Evaluations-of-Polyacrylamide-Hydrogel-Baits-Against-Argentine/10.1093/jee/tov044.pdf

Laboratory and Field Evaluations of Polyacrylamide Hydrogel Baits Against Argentine Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Pest management professionals in California receive more customer complaints about Argentine ants than for any other urban ant pest. Fipronil, applied as a 30 × 30 cm band around the house foundation, has become the preferred treatment used to control these ants. Unfortunately, fipronil is now showing up in urban waterways at levels that are toxic to aquatic invertebrates. Our recent studies are aimed at mitigating insecticide runoff while still controlling the ant infestations. A high priority is preventing fipronil runoff from the driveway to the street, where it can flow into drains and from there to urban waterways. In this paper, two related studies address these issues. Not treating driveways with fipronil reduced by two to three orders of magnitude its runoff when compared with earlier studies. However, not treating the driveway can reduce efficacy of treatments. Granular bifenthrin, indoxacarb, botanicals, and a thiamethoxam ant bait were tested as supplemental treatments. The gel bait sho...

Argentine ant control around homes: efficacy of treatments and urban runoff

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Sarajean Wright

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Laboratory and Field Evaluations of Polyacrylamide Hydrogel Baits Against Argentine Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Argentine ant control around homes: efficacy of treatments and urban runoff