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A new U.S. Geological Study report suggests that chemicals found in nonstick cookware and water repellents could be affecting tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) living along the upper Mississippi River. It's been known that the Mississippi River around and south of the Twin Cities is contaminated with perfluoroalkoxy (PFA), a chemical found in many household products. The report says wastewater discharges and contaminated groundwater from manufacturer 3M's facilities have created hotspots for PFAs, even though it's been more than a decade since the company stopped producing them. USGS researchers studying tree swallows in Wisconsin and Minnesota found that birds with high concentrations of PFAs are less likely to hatch.

New York City residents are more highly exposed to two types of widely used pesticides than the U.S. average, according to a new study. The findings “underscore the importance of considering pest and pesticide burdens in cities when formulating pesticide use regulations,” the researchers from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Organophosphate metabolites were measured in the urine of 882 New Yorkers, while 1,452 residents were tested for pyrethroid metabolites. Some organophosphates have been banned in the United States in recent years, although many are still heavily used in agriculture. Pyrethroids are used indoors and outdoors in sprays and bug bombs to kill fleas, mosquitoes and other pests. Among New Yorkers who were 20 to 59 years old in 2004, the highest exposed group had between two and six times more organophosphates in their urine than the highest exposed group in a national study. They also had between 1.7 and 2.4 times more pyrethroids than the nationwide group. In previous studies in New York City and in a California farm area, prenatal exposure to organophosphates has been associated with reduced mental skills in children.

In the closing years of the nineteenth century German scientists sought for the ‘silver bullet’ – an elixir to relieve all aches and pains. Their discovery of an opium derivative appeared to be just that – a ‘heroic’ medicine. So they christen it ‘heroin.’ Half-a-century later Germany researchers were once again attempting to dscover a substitute for the nicotine insecticides then in short supply. In 1938 four scientists at IG Farben in Wuppertal-Elberfeld created just such a stronger pesticide. It was named in honour of its discoverers Schrader, Ambros, Rüdiger and Van der Linde: sarin. Sixty-five years later, sarin was used as a chemical weapon by the Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime to kill more than 1,400 people on 21 August, incurring the world’s wrath. Sarin is an organophosphate, a group of highly successful and widely used chemicals used for control of a broad spectrum of crop insect and arachnid pests. They include such popular preparations as malathion, diazinon and chlorpyrifos (Dursban®), dimethoate (Cygon®) and dichlorvos (Vapona®) all widely distributed for home use at least until recently. Most are still available for agricultural and forestry use, accompanied by an alarming number of other organophosphates, many of whose tongue-twisting names conceal their lethal nature.

Early-life exposure to the herbicide atrazine makes frogs more susceptible to death from chytrid (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), a fungal disease implicated in amphibian declines across the globe. The research, Early-life exposure to a herbicide has enduring effects on pathogen-induced mortality, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and led by University of South Florida (USF) biologist Jason Rohr, Ph.D, provides critical information for scientists hoping to stem the global demise of amphibian populations. “Understanding how stressors cause enduring health effects is important because these stressors might then be avoided or mitigated during formative developmental stages to prevent lasting increases in disease susceptibility,” Dr. Rohr explains.

In less than 20 years, neonicotinoids have become the most widely used class of insecticides with a global market share of more than 25%. For pollinators, this has transformed the agrochemical landscape. These chemicals mimic the acetylcholine neurotransmitter and are highly neurotoxic to insects. Their systemic mode of action inside plants means phloemic and xylemic transport that results in translocation to pollen and nectar. Their wide application, persistence in soil and water and potential for uptake by succeeding crops and wild plants make neonicotinoids bioavailable to pollinators at sublethal concentrations for most of the year. This results in the frequent presence of neonicotinoids in honeybee hives. At field realistic doses, neonicotinoids cause a wide range of adverse sublethal effects in honeybee and bumblebee colonies, affecting colony performance through impairment of foraging success, brood and larval development, memory and learning, damage to the central nervous system, susceptibility to diseases, hive hygiene etc. Neonicotinoids exhibit a toxicity that can be amplified by various other agrochemicals and they synergistically reinforce infectious agents such as Nosema ceranae which together can produce colony collapse. The limited available data suggest that they are likely to exhibit similar toxicity to virtually all other wild insect pollinators. The worldwide production of neonicotinoids is still increasing. Therefore a transition to pollinator-friendly alternatives to neonicotinoids is urgently needed for the sake of the sustainability of pollinator ecosystem services.

New Zealand is facing an invasion of Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), which compete with native southern ants (Monomorium antarcticum). The insects often meet in urban or agricultural areas, where neonicotinoids are in use. So ecologist Rafael Barbieri, a graduate student in the lab of Philip Lester at Victoria University of Wellington, wondered whether the behavioural changes that have been associated with sublethal neonicotinoid exposure in other insects affect how the two species interact. “Any changes in behaviour could potentially affect the structure of the entire community,” he says. As the team describes in Proceedings of the Royal Society B1, Barbieri exposed the ants to extremely low doses of a common neonicotinoid and examined how the insecticide affected each species’ behaviour. He did not observe an effect on the foraging behaviour or survivability of either species in isolation, although they did cut the brood size of the invasive Argentine ant in half. But it was when the two species met that the real effects were seen. When the southern ant was exposed to the potent neurotoxins, it became much less aggressive towards the invader. This increased the survival odds of the Argentine ant, and could help it to spread. However, when invasive ants were exposed to the insecticides, they became much more aggressive towards unexposed Southern ants — so aggressive, in fact, that they risked their own lives to attack. As a result, unexposed natives were able to completely eradicate their exposed rivals.

Butterflies in Singapore have decreased in both number and variety since the 1980s. Excluding new butterfly species, some 117 are now believed to be extinct; there have been no reliable observations of them for at least the past two decades. A comparison with past recorded checklists shows there are now 306 species, down from 386 in the 1950s to 1980s. Citing these figures, butterfly expert Khew Sin Khoon, who is also an honorary research affiliate at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, said the trend was mainly due to the loss of habitats. "Butterflies are tightly correlated with plants, and as Singapore developed, the habitats that they prefer may have been destroyed... Some of the caterpillar host plants may have (also) gone extinct," he said. It is not known when the sharpest decline in the number of butterfly species took place but Mr Khew said the peak of development occurred in the 1970s and 1980s when tracts of land were cleared to make way for new homes. Ecologist Anuj Jain, 29, said that over the years, developments around forests have resulted in what he calls "fragmented forests". "If the forest is big, you have a bigger interior but if you have smaller forests, it means there are more areas for light exposure," said Mr Anuj, who heads the Butterfly Interest Group at Nature Society of Singapore (NSS). "Although some species are adaptable to light conditions, most butterflies like to hide in darker areas."More recently, the increased fumigation in residential areas is also threatening butterflies and caterpillars, said Mr Khew.

The Associated Press’ report described pesticide use near heavily populated areas, children being regularly exposed to harmful agrochemicals, the contamination of water supplies, and workers who were not properly trained to handle such pesticides. The AP report focused on regions in Argentina that produce soybeans, cotton and corn. According to the news agency, Argentina adopted the use of genetically modified organisms, GMOs, as well as agrochemicals from Monsanto Co., in 1996 and all of the country’s soy crops, with corn and cotton just behind, are genetically modified. Despite the claims from Monsanto that pesticide use would decrease with GMO crops, the new report indicates instead a dramatic increase, from nine million gallons used in 1990 to 84 million gallons in 2013. That number, per square acre, is more than double the pesticide use in the United States, reports AP.

Conservationists have urged the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, to use the money newly available from the EU's common agricultural policy to step up protection measures. Since 2003, there has been a 13% decline in the population of farmland birds. In the five years to the end of 2012, the decline was 8% overall. The decline has slowed, according to the Wild Bird Indicator statistics released by the government on Thursday, and some species are in better health than they were in the 1970s when data began to be comprehensively collected. However, conservationists are concerned that the drop in numbers is continuing, with a halving of farmland bird numbers in the past 40 years. Woodland birds are down 17%.

Something is very wrong in Wellington County, Ontario – Jim Coneybeare says his bees are dying at an alarming rate.
“It’s my livestock. It shouldn’t be dead stock,” he says. “There is a toxic environment out there that is killing our bees. It’s a severe problem.” Coneybeare believes a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids (NNIs) are killing his bees. Over the past three years, Canadian beekeepers have faced annual losses as high as 35 percent. “Let’s face it, this is an insecticide designed to kill insects, and it’s doing that. It’s killing bees,” he says. Experts say these losses are unsustainable. One-third of all food we eat – including almonds, melons, tomatoes, and cucumbers – is pollinated by bees. Beekeepers like Coneybeare just can’t keep up. While there are many factors associated with bee declines – including mites, viruses, and loss of habitat – there is mounting evidence that NNIs, such as one manufactured by Bayer CropScience called clothianidin, play an important part. When used appropriately, Bayer says its pesticide does not hurt bees. “Currently there is no science that say otherwise,” says Bayer’s Ontario research-and-development manager Luc Bourgeois about the company’s production of clothianidin. Clothianidin is used widely on corn, soya, and other crops.