Exposure to pesticide mixtures does not affect locomotory behaviors in carabid beetles
Abstract
Pesticide use is known to have deleterious effects on non-target organisms’ physiology and behavior even at sublethal doses. Despite progress in the integration of behavioral indicators in ecotoxicological assays, tests are often conducted using a substance-by-substance approach. However, field-contamination is rarely due to a unique substance, but to mixtures of fungicides, herbicides and insecticides, each with potentially different modes of actions. We tested the locomotory activity of 180 carabid beetles over a gradient of pesticide mixture exposure in agricultural soils. We sampled 10 soils representative of low, medium and high pesticide contamination levels. An additional 18 beetles were exposed to a standardized soil without pesticides. Carabids were housed in groups of 6 individuals over 6 weeks before measuring the outcomes of pesticide exposure on locomotory behaviors. We did not find evidence of behavioral alterations in exposed individuals compared to controls, nor with the number of pesticide molecules detected. Our results suggest that contact exposure has little influence on carabid behaviors. Exposure through the consumption of contaminated food item as the primary exposure route is currently under investigation.
Origin | Files produced by the author(s) |
---|