Pesticide impacts are usually discussed in the context of applied amounts while disregarding the large but environmentally relevant variations in substance-specific toxicity. Here, we systemically interpret changes in the use of 381 pesticides over 25 years by considering 1591 substance-specific acute toxicity threshold values for eight nontarget species groups. We find that the toxicity of applied insecticides to aquatic invertebrates and pollinators has increased considerably—in sharp contrast to the applied amount—and that this increase has been driven by highly toxic pyrethroids and neonicotinoids, respectively. We also report increasing applied toxicity to aquatic invertebrates and pollinators in genetically modified (GM) corn and to terrestrial plants in herbicide-tolerant soybeans since approximately 2010. Our results challenge the claims of a decrease in the environmental impacts of pesticide use.

通常在使用量的背景下讨论农药的影响，而忽略物质特异性毒性的较大但与环境相关的变化。在这里，我们通过考虑八个非目标物种组的1591种特定于物质的急性毒性阈值，系统地解释了381种农药在25年内的使用变化。我们发现，施用的杀虫剂对水生无脊椎动物和授粉媒介的毒性已大大增加（与施用量形成鲜明对比），并且这种增加分别是由剧毒拟除虫菊酯和新烟碱类引起的。自2010年左右以来，我们还报告了对转基因（GM）玉米中水生无脊椎动物和传粉媒介以及耐除草剂大豆中陆生植物的应用毒性增加。