Insecticiden

Four water supplies, one in Kilkenny, two in Limerick and one in Longford currently have a level of pesticides above the set EU standard, according to Irish Water. The pesticide that is being detected most frequently in drinking water supplies in Ireland is an herbicide called MCPA. This herbicide is in many products used to control thistle, dock and rush. This increase is because products containing MCPA are being used to control weeds on hard surfaces, in gardens, on farms or in forestry.

We measured uptake and dissipation of soil-applied imidacloprid and dinotefuran in nectar and leaves of 2 woody plant species, a broadleaf evergreen tree (Ilex attenuata) and a deciduous shrub (Clethra alnifolia), to assess concentrations to which pollinators and pests might be exposed in landscape settings. Three application timings, autumn (postbloom), spring (prebloom), and summer (early postbloom), were evaluated to see if taking advantage of differences in the neonicotinoids’ systemic mobility and persistence might enable pest control while minimizing transference into nectar.

Scotland’s forests are treated and sprayed every year with hundreds of kilograms of a toxic pesticide blamed for killing bees and butterflies, The Ferret can reveal. Our investigation has uncovered widespread use of the nicotine-based insecticide, acetamiprid, by the forestry industry, provoking concerns from experts and alarm from environmentalists who fear “creeping degradation” of nature.

The bird population has been declining in Czech farmland, with the decline accelerating since the country's EU entry in 2004, experts from Charles University's Faculty of Sciences write in a study published by the Conservation Letters international journal. The joint European policy and system of agricultural subsidies are unfavourable to birds and wildlife, the study says, cited by the Czech Society for Ornithology (CSO).

Bees living in suburban habitats are still being exposed to significant levels of pesticides despite the EU ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops, new research from University of Sussex scientists shows. The study, with colleagues at Stirling University and Rothamsted Research, found that neonicotinoid exposure for rural bumblebees declined after the ban's implementation in 2015 but the risk to bumblebees in suburban gardens remained largely the same.

New research led by scientists at the University of Bristol has uncovered that long-term use of some pesticides to treat cattle for parasites is having a significantly detrimental effect on the dung beetle population. Researchers studied 24 cattle farms across south west England and found that farms that used certain pesticides had fewer species of dung beetle. Dr Bryony Sands, from the University's School of Biological Sciences, who led the research, said: "Dung beetles recycle dung pats on pastures, bringing the nutrients back into the soil and ensuring the pastures are fertile.