Effect of diets with different protein contents on the longevity of Apis mellifera Africanized bees exposed to ingestion of sublethal dose of the herbicide glyphosate

• Grant number: 17/19035-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Production
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo de Oliveira Orsi
• Grantee: Aimê de Almeida Longuini
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/07937-1 - Research internship in the pharmacognosy laboratory at Coimbra University, Portugal, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

The intensive use of agrochemicals in the ecosystems has favored the contamination of the food sources (nectar, pollen and water) collected by the honeybees, being one of the responsible for the disappearance of these insects. The pollen collected by bees provides essential proteins for the proper development of bees, maintaining their colonies and the amino acids are essential for synthesis of enzymes that act on the detoxification system of these insects, which can interfere with resistance to pesticides. Thus, the objective of the present work is to evaluate the influence of artificial diets developed with different protein levels in the longevity of bees chronically exposed to herbicide glyphosate under laboratory conditions. Initially, the LD50 of the herbicide will be determined in the ingestion test and later the sublethal dose (LD50 / 100) will be used to contaminate the artificial diets supplied to the bees. The diets used in the present study will be isoenergetic, developed with different levels of crude protein (19, 22, 25, 28 and 31%). For longevity testing, newly emerged bees will be housed in containment cages and will receive artificial diets contaminated or not with the LD50 / 100 glyphosate. The diets will be provided until the loss of all bees in each treatment with record of the daily mortality of the bees. As controls, bees will be used that will receive sugar syrup and beebread. All tests will be performed in triplicate; The longevity data will be evaluated by the Kaplan-Meier method using the SPSS program. Differences will be considered significant when p <0.05. (AU)