Data from: Chronic neonicotinoid pesticide exposure and parasite stress differentially affects learning in honeybees and bumblebees

Learning and memory are crucial functions which enable insect pollinators to efficiently locate and extract floral rewards. Exposure to pesticides or infection by parasites may cause subtle but ecologically important changes in cognitive functions of pollinators. The potential interactive effects of these stressors on learning and memory have not yet been explored. Furthermore, sensitivity to stressors may differ between species, but few studies have compared responses in different species. Here, we show that chronic exposure to field-realistic levels of the neonicotinoid clothianidin impaired olfactory learning acquisition in honeybees, leading to potential impacts on colony fitness, but not in bumblebees. Infection by the microsporidian parasite Nosema ceranae slightly impaired learning in honeybees, but no interactive effects were observed. Nosema did not infect bumblebees (3% infection success). Nevertheless, Nosema treated bumblebees had a slightly lower rate of learning than controls, but faster learning in combination with neonicotinoid exposure. This highlights the potential for complex interactive effects of stressors on learning. Our results underline that one cannot readily extrapolate findings from one bee species to others. This has important implications for regulatory risk assessments which generally use honeybees as a model for all bees

Kehitysvammaisen työllistäminen palkkatyöhön

Opinnäytetyömme tarkoituksena oli tuottaa yhteistyössä Kaakkois-Suomen sosiaalialan osaamiskeskus Socomin kanssa mainos- ja markkinointivideot: Yes We Can – Osatyökykyiset palkkatyöhön ja Yes We Can – Osatyökykyiset palkkatyössä (liitteet 1,2). Niiden tavoitteena on parantaa kehitysvammaisten työllistymismahdollisuuksia hälventämällä työnantajien ja työyhteisöjen ennakkoluuloja kehitysvammaisten työllistymistä kohtaan sekä lisäämällä heidän tietoisuuttaan aiheesta. Videoita käytetään työhönvalmentajien työkaluina etsittäessä kehitysvammaisille palkkatyötä. Videot toimivat työkaluina myös valmennettaessa työnantajia ja työyhteisöjä ottamaan kehitysvammainen henkilö osaksi työyhteisöä. Videoissa tulee esiin sekä palkkatyöhön työllistyneiden kehitysvammaisten että heitä työllistäneiden työnantajien näkemys aiheesta. Lisäksi työhönvalmentajat kertovat omasta roolistaan työllistymisprosessin eri vaiheissa. Opinnäytetyömme yhteistyökumppaneina olivat Kaakkois-Suomen sosiaalialan osaamiskeskus Oy Socom ja Etelä-Karjalan sosiaali- ja terveyspiiri Eksote. Opinnäytetyömme on toiminnallinen ja laadullinen kehittämistehtävä, joka koostuu teoreettisesta osuudesta ja videoista. Teoriaosuudessa kävimme läpi kehitysvammaisuutta, itsemääräämisoikeutta, valinnanvapautta, kehitysvammaisia henkilöitä koskevaa lainsäädäntöä, kehitysvammaisia työllistyjinä ja työhönvalmennusta. Videoita varten olemme haastatelleet työhönvalmentajia, palkkatyöhön työllistyneitä kehitysvammaisia sekä työnantajia todellisissa, luonnollisissa tilanteissa sekä ryhmä- että yksilöhaastatteluin. Sekä teoriaosuutta että videoita varten olemme tutkineet kirjallisuutta ja eri verkkolähteitä aiheesta, osallistuneet työhönvalmentajien koulutustilaisuuksiin ja käyneet yhteistä pohdintaa opinnäytetyöryhmämme kesken. Videoita on katsottu touko-syyskuun 2017 aikana Socomin Facebook-sivulla noin 1700 kertaa, ja niitä on jaettu eteenpäin Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitoksen (THL) ja Vates-säätiön kautta muun muassa Työllistämisen kehittämispäivillä sekä YouTube-palvelussa. Näin ollen videot ovat saavuttaneet jo nyt laajan yleisön ja olemme onnistuneet tavoitteessamme lisätä tietoisuutta työhönvalmennukseen liittyvistä palveluista.The aim of the thesis was to produce advertising and marketing videos which would increase employment opportunities of people with intellectual disabilities by reducing the prejudices of employers and work communities against intellectually disabled people and by increasing awareness of the subject. The videos can be used by job coaches who are searching for a paid work for intellectually disabled people. They can also be used as instructional videos for employers and work communities with disabled workers. The videos view the subject from the point of both the intellectually disabled people in paid employment as well as from that of their employers. Also the job coaches tell about their role throughout the employment process. The partners for the thesis were Kaakkois-Suomen sosiaalialan osaamiskeskus Oy (Socom) and South Karelia Social and Health Care District (Eksote). The thesis is a functional and qualitative development task which consists of a written theoretical part and the video clips. In the theoretical part we looked at people with intellectual disabilities, their self-determination, discretion, legislation on disabled people and intellectually disabled people as employees and their job coaching. For the videos job coaches, intellectually disabled people in paid labour and employers in real-life situations, individually as well as in groups. Both for the theoretical part and for the videos we studied literary and Internet sources related to the subject matter, we participated in job coach trainings and we had several team discussions. The videos have been shown on Socom Facebook page alone about 1700 times and they have been shared by The National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and Vates-foundation and on YouTube. Therefore, the videos have already reached a wide audience and we have thus reached our goal which was to increase awareness of services related to job coaching. For further study, one could look at the employers who do not yet have experience on employing intellectually disabled people. It would be interesting to know if they are familiar with different ways of employing disabled people and the support they are entitled to as employers as well as other aspects that would encourage them to hire a disabled person

Data_PER_Responsiveness_UnrewardedAndMemoryTest

Responsiveness to sugar stimulus test, unrewarded test and memory test data for honeybees and bumblebees

Data from: Stress for invasion success? Temperature stress of preceding generations modifies the response to insecticide stress in an invasive pest insect

Adaptation to stressful environments is one important factor influencing species invasion success. Tolerance to one stress may be complicated by exposure to other stressors experienced by the preceding generations. We studied whether parental temperature stress affects tolerance to insecticide in the invasive Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata. Field-collected pyrethroid-resistant beetles were reared under either stressful (17°C) or favourable (23°C) insecticide-free environments for three generations. Then, larvae were exposed to pyrethroid insecticides in common garden conditions (23°C). Beetles were in general tolerant to stress. The parental temperature stress alone affected beetles positively (increased adult weight) but it impaired their tolerance to insecticide exposure. In contrast, offspring from the favourable temperature regime showed compensatory weight gain in response to insecticide exposure. Our study emphasizes the potential of cross-generational effects modifying species stress tolerance. When resistant pest populations invade benign environments, a re-application of insecticides may enhance their performance via hormetic effects. In turn, opposite effects may arise if parental generations have been exposed to temperature stress. Thus, the outcome of management practices of invasive pest species are difficult to predict unless we also incorporate knowledge of the evolutionary and recent (preceding generations) stress history of the given populations into pest management

Data_SugarConsumptionCollection

Sugar water consumption/collection data for honeybees and bumblebees

Data_PER_LearningAcquisition

Proboscis extension response (PER) data of 10 CS-US trials for honeybees and bumblebees

No effect of low-level chronic neonicotinoid exposure on bumblebee learning and fecundity

In recent years, many pollinators have declined in abundance and diversity worldwide, presenting a potential threat to agricultural productivity, biodiversity and the functioning of natural ecosystems. One of the most debated factors proposed to be contributing to pollinator declines is exposure to pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids, a widely used class of systemic insecticide. Also, newly emerging parasites and diseases, thought to be spread via contact with managed honeybees, may pose threats to other pollinators such as bumblebees. Compared to honeybees, bumblebees could be particularly vulnerable to the effects of stressors due to their smaller and more short-lived colonies. Here, we studied the effect of field-realistic, chronic clothianidin exposure and inoculation with the parasite Nosema ceranae on survival, fecundity, sugar water collection and learning using queenless Bombus terrestris audax microcolonies in the laboratory. Chronic exposure to 1 ppb clothianidin had no significant effects on the traits studied. Interestingly, pesticide exposure in combination with additional stress caused by harnessing bees for Proboscis Extension Response (PER) learning assays, led to an increase in mortality. In contrast to previous findings, the bees did not become infected by N. ceranae after experimental inoculation with the parasite spores, suggesting variability in host resistance or parasite virulence. However, this treatment induced a slight, short-term reduction in sugar water collection, potentially through stimulation of the immune system of the bees. Our results suggest that chronic exposure to 1 ppb clothianidin does not have adverse effects on bumblebee fecundity or learning ability