An effective risk management approach to prevent bee damage due to the emission of abraded seed treatment particles during sowing of seeds treated with bee toxic insecticides

contribution to session V Honey bee poisoning incidents and monitoring schemes In spring of 2008, a bee incident occurred in the Upper Rhine Valley (Germany) during drilling of corn: bees were exposed to dust from abraded particles of the seed-coating containing the insecticide clothianidin. An inspection of drilled seed batches for resistance to abrasion and a geographical correlation analysis between specified seed batches and reported bee damages revealed that the incident was caused by improperly dressed batches of corn seeds with excessive abrasion of seed treatment particles which were subsequently emitted via the outlet air stream of the pneumatic drilling machines. Concerns raised by local beekeepers regarding effects on bees from foraging in seed-treated corn fields during bloom could be dispelled by a large-scale survey of clothianidin residues in pollen from the treated crop and an accompanying monitoring of bee hives exposed to flowering corn fields. In order to ensure the bee safety of seed-dressing products, technical improvements of seed treatment quality and drilling technology were developed resulting in a minimization of formation and emission of dust from abraded seed treatment particles. The efficacy of these improvements was proven in field trials. Keywords: seed treatment, drilling machines, corn, clothianidin, dust, honey bee

Diskussion über "Die deutsche Jugend" und "Jugendpflege, Jugendbewegung"

Diskussion über die beiden Vorträge: 1. Litt, Theodor: Die deutsche Jugend in der Gegenwart; 2. Becker, Howard: Jugendpflege und Jugendbewegung einst und heut

表紙・目次 『第15回CEReS国際シンポジウム「環境リモートセンシングのこれま での成果とさらなる挑戦」』 2009年12月15日～16日 於千葉大学

Held on 15-16 December, 2009, Chiba Universit

Transitory Microbial Habitat in the Hyperarid Atacama Desert

Traces of life are nearly ubiquitous on Earth. However, a central unresolved question is whether these traces always indicate an active microbial community or whether, in extreme environments, such as hyperarid deserts, they instead reflect just dormant or dead cells. Although microbial biomass and diversity decrease with increasing aridity in the Atacama Desert, we provide multiple lines of evidence for the presence of an at times metabolically active, microbial community in one of the driest places on Earth. We base this observation on four major lines of evidence: a physico-chemical characterization of the soil habitability after an exceptional rain event, identified biomolecules indicative of potentially active cells [e.g., presence of ATP, phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs), metabolites, and enzymatic activity], measurements of in situ replication rates of genomes of uncultivated bacteria reconstructed from selected samples, and microbial community patterns specific to soil parameters and depths. We infer that the microbial populations have undergone selection and adaptation in response to their specific soil microenvironment and in particular to the degree of aridity. Collectively, our results highlight that even the hyperarid Atacama Desert can provide a habitable environment for microorganisms that allows them to become metabolically active following an episodic increase in moisture and that once it decreases, so does the activity of the microbiota. These results have implications for the prospect of life on other planets such as Mars, which has transitioned from an earlier wetter environment to today's extreme hyperaridity. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

Methanogenic archaea can produce methane in deliquescence-driven Mars analog environments

The current understanding of the Martian surface indicates that briny environments at the near-surface are temporarily possible, e.g. in the case of the presumably deliquescence-driven Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL). However, whether such dynamic environments are habitable for terrestrial organisms remains poorly understood. This hypothesis was tested by developing a Closed Deliquescence System (CDS) consisting of a mixture of desiccated Martian Regolith Analog (MRA) substrate, salts, and microbial cells, which over the course of days became wetted through deliquescence. The methane produced via metabolic activity for three methanogenic archaea: Methanosarcina mazei, M. barkeri and M. soligelidi, was measured after exposing them to three different MRA substrates using either NaCl or NaClO4 as a hygroscopic salt. Our experiments showed that (1) M. soligelidi rapidly produced methane at 4 °C, (2) M. barkeri produced methane at 28 °C though not at 4 °C, (3) M. mazei was not metabolically reactivated through deliquescence, (4) none of the species produced methane in the presence of perchlorate, and (5) all species were metabolically most active in the phyllosilicate-containing MRA. These results emphasize the importance of the substrate, microbial species, salt, and temperature used in the experiments. Furthermore, we show here for the first time that water provided by deliquescence alone is sufficient to rehydrate methanogenic archaea and to reactivate their metabolism under conditions roughly analogous to the near-subsurface Martian environment