Abstract
Insecticide use remains both ubiquitous and controversial around the world, due to its importance despite acknowledged inherent environmental risk. Neonicotinoid insecticides have been targeted as potential culprits of reported pollinator declines and decreases in insect abundance and diversity. Having systemic activity in plants, neonicotinoids can be used as seed treatments. Such use, associated with a relatively higher water solubility and soil persistence, may enhance the potential of these compounds to change the structure and function of food webs associated with crop plants. We therefore conducted a food web analysis to assess the short-term impact of seed treatments with the neonicotinoid imidacloprid on the arthropod community associated with Neotropical soybean fields. Imidacloprid-treated and untreated soybeans were cultivated for two seasons, and associated arthropods were sampled throughout the plant phenological cycle. The data collected were used to build plant–consumer–predator networks using food web analysis. We found that imidacloprid seed treatments significantly affected arthropod species richness and abundance in a preliminary analysis, thus affecting soybean-associated arthropod assemblage. However, this effect was secondary to cultivation season, unlike the findings from food web analysis where the effect of imidacloprid seed treatment prevailed. The effect of imidacloprid was significant especially on prey–predator asymmetries and proportion of taxa at higher trophic levels. Higher food web complexity was associated with imidacloprid-treated fields particularly during the 2nd cultivation season, but without impacting soybean yield. Our results suggest that imidacloprid soybean seed treatments impact the arthropod community within the crop, but do not necessarily reduce community complexity and have no noticeable effect on pest species and crop yield.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The provision of the experimental areas and field technical support by the Department of Agriculture of the Federal University of Viçosa was greatly appreciated, as were the financial support provided for the study.
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The financial support provided by the Minas Gerais State Foundation for Research Aid (FAPEMIG BDS-00488–16), National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), CAPES Foundation (Brazilian Ministry of Education; Finance Code 001), and a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (RGPIN-2015–04639).
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Resende-Silva, G.A., Bravim, J.N., Haro, M.M. et al. Imidacloprid seed treatment in soybean-associated arthropod food webs: Reason for concern, or justifiable neglect?. J Pest Sci 96, 129–139 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-022-01503-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-022-01503-6