Impact of chronic exposure to field level glyphosate on the food consumption, survival, gene expression, gut microbiota, and metabolomic profiles of honeybees

Changsheng Ma; Gaoying Gu; Sihao Chen; Xiaoyu Shi; Zuren Li; Hongmei Li-Byarlay; Lianyang Bai

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2024.118509

Impact of chronic exposure to field level glyphosate on the food consumption, survival, gene expression, gut microbiota, and metabolomic profiles of honeybees

Environ Res. 2024 Feb 24:250:118509. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.118509. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Changsheng Ma¹, Gaoying Gu², Sihao Chen³, Xiaoyu Shi⁴, Zuren Li⁵, Hongmei Li-Byarlay⁶, Lianyang Bai⁷

Affiliations

¹ Longping Branch Graduate School, College of Biology, Hunan University, Changsha 410125, China; Key laboratory of Pesticide Assessment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha 410125, China.
² Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Science, Kunming, Yunnan Province 650223, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK; Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Xi'an-Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
⁵ Key laboratory of Pesticide Assessment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha 410125, China. Electronic address: lizuren88214@hunaas.cn.
⁶ Agricultural Research and Development Program, Central State University, Wilberforce, OH 45384, USA. Electronic address: hli-byarlay@centralstate.edu.
⁷ Longping Branch Graduate School, College of Biology, Hunan University, Changsha 410125, China; Key laboratory of Pesticide Assessment, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha 410125, China. Electronic address: lybai@hunaas.cn.

PMID: 38408628
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.118509

Abstract

Glyphosate (GLY) is among the most widely used pesticides in the world. However, there are a lot of unknowns about chronic exposure to GLY's effects on Honeybee (HB) behavior and physiology. To address this, we carried out five experiments to study the impact of chronic exposure to 5 mg/kg GLY on sugar consumption, survival, gene expression, gut microbiota, and metabolites of HB workers. Our results find a significant decrease in sugar consumption and survival probability of HB after chronic exposure to GLY. Further, genes associated with immune response, energy metabolism, and longevity were conspicuously altered. In addition, a total of seven metabolites were found to be differentially expressed in the metabolomic profiles, mainly related the sucrose metabolism. There was no significant difference in the gut microbiota. Results suggest that chronic exposure to field-level GLY altered the health of HB and the intricate toxic mechanisms. Our data provided insights into the chronic effects of GLY on HB behavior in food intake and health, which represents the field conditions where HB are exposed to pesticides over extended periods.

Keywords: Behavior; Herbicide; Pollinator; Potential mechanism.