Agnès Rortais

Jane Stout

Jean-Lou Dorne

Tony Hardy

Jean‐Lou Dorne

Crossref

EFSA Journal

Editorial: EFSA calls for integrated and coordinated actions at EU and international levels to address global declines of pollinators

Directory of Open Access Journals

   EFSA Journal 2013;11(7):e11071  Suggested citation: Rortais A, Stout J, Dorne J-L, Hardy T; Editorial: EFSA calls for integrated and coordinated actions at EU  and  international  levels  to  address  global  declines  of  pollinators.  EFSA  Journal  2013;11(7):e11071.  3  pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2013.e11071 Available online: www.efsa.europa.eu/efsajournal © European Food Safety Authority, 2013  Editorial: EFSA calls for integrated and coordinated actions at EU and international levels to address global declines of pollinators  Agnès Rortais, Jane Stout, Jean-Lou Dorne, Tony Hardy1  European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Parma, Italy    The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the keystone of the European Union’s food and feed safety risk assessment. Indeed, EFSA provides scientific advice to risks managers for the safety of food  in  the  EU  and  a  high  level  of  protection  for  food-producing  animals,  including  bees,  their ecosystem services, such as crop pollination and honey production. The large bee losses reported worldwide over the last decades have stimulated a lot of research on the monitoring of bees, mainly Apis  bees  (honeybees),  and  their  stressors  (e.g.  pathological,  agrochemicals,  environmental, nutritional,  etc.),  but  principally  on  pathogens.  During  this  process,  extensive  datasets  have  been generated and collated on honeybee losses that have been linked to diseases, pests and pathogens in Europe  and  North  America.  However,  given  the  importance  of  all  bee  pollinators  -  not  only honeybees - and the universally agreed multifactorial origin of bee losses, such an approach seems too limited and may fail in meeting the global protection goals of ensuring bee diversity, crop pollination and honey production. To better integrate the work and recent progress made in the risk assessment of bee health and to promote  the  more  cohesive  protection  of  bees  and  their  ecosystem  services,  EFSA  organised  on 15-16 May 2013 a Scientific Colloquium entitled ‘Towards holistic approaches to the risk assessment of multiple stressors in bees’. This initiative emerged from the recommendations made by EFSA’s internal and multidisciplinary Bee Task Force, whose mandate is to develop horizontal and integrated approaches to the risk assessment of bee health in order to identify gaps in knowledge and research needs in this area. Overall, EFSA assembled over 100 international scientists specialised on bees from a broad range of disciplines such as ecology, biodiversity conservation, pollination, epidemiology, ecotoxicology and mathematical modelling, from several countries (Europe, the United States and Canada),  and  from  various  institutions  such  as  academia,  the  European  Commission,  national environmental  bodies,  industrial  and  producer  groups  including  beekeeper  associations  and  non-governmental organisations.  Considering the high number of possible bee stressors such as pathogens, pests, diseases, nutrition, pesticides, habitat and climatic changes to only cite the most commonly reported in the scientific literature, and the many potential exposure routes (for example through the environment for all bees and through hive products for honeybees only), bees represent a good model for the development of holistic  approaches  to  the  risk  assessment  of  multiple  stressors  in  non-target  arthropods,  such  as                                                        1 Correspondence: editor-in-chief.efsajournal@efsa.europa.eu  Integrated and coordinated actions on bees  EFSA Journal 2013;11(7):e11071  2 pollinators. Although experts at the colloquium could rapidly identify and list such stressors and the existing  and available  methods and tools  to  assess them  and  mitigate  their impacts  on  bees  and pollination, they could not prioritise among them. To overcome this shortcoming, experts suggested the application of the Bradford Hill Criteria, necessary to provide adequate eviden ce of a causal relationship between an incidence and a consequence, which has been used routinely in epidemiology.  In the environment – depending on the time of the year, the location, the weather and many other conditions related to the species habitat and life history – bees are exposed to various stressors, acting separately  or  in  combination,  on  individuals,  colonies  and  populations.  However,  the  current regulatory tests that assess risks in bees do not consider multiple exposures and combined effects of stressors, whether additive or synergistic. In addition, these tests focus on honeybees, but the use of honeybees as surrogates for other pollinator species is questionable because other bee species have different life cycles, routes of exposure and sensitivity to stressors. To overcome the complexity of the assessment of multiple exposures, some experts suggested the use of predictive mathematical models - for example colony models or physiologically based toxicokinetic models which could be used in the assessment  of  chemical  stressors  -  while  others  expressed  concerns  about  the  usefulness  of  such models,  because  they  need  to  be  fine-tuned  with  more  data  before  they  can  provide  meaningful outcomes. Although such data are usually available but incomplete for honeybees, they are scant for bumblebees and further lacking for solitary bees where basic knowledge of their biology, population ecology and functional genomics is required. EFSA has recently published a scientific opinion and guidance document on the risk assessment of plant protection products with respect to bees, including wild bees such as bumblebees and solitary bees (EFSA Panel on Plant Protection Products and their Residues, 2012; EFSA, 2013). From this work, several recommendations and suggestions were made to improve the current regulatory tests for plant  protection  products,  in  particular  for  field  tests  by  increasing  their  statistical  power  and ecological  relevance  by,  for  example,  increasing  the  number  of  tested  colonies,  including  proper controls, incorporating significant periods of observation, selecting large plot size, etc. At the EFSA colloquium,  bee  experts  urged  the  rapid  implementation  of  such  protocols,  which  need  to  be standardised and validated and should include the assessment of sub-lethal and chronic effects on individual bees, colonies and populations. In terms of monitoring and mitigation, experts explained that actions cannot be confined to agricultural systems and honeybees because bee stressors come from  the  wider  landscape,  not  just  from  agriculture,  and  expose  all  bees,  not  only  honeybees. However, the question of a link between protection goals and the effects observed at the individual and colony levels, in laboratory and field conditions, remains an important scientific challenge that needs addressing.  Overall it became obvious that more research is required for non-Apis bees (bumblebees and solitary bees) compared to Apis bees in several scientific fields, from basic knowledge of the biology and ecology to more specific knowledge on the genomics, abundance and distribution of species through wide scale monitoring programmes. Fortunately, such information is usually available for honeybees, although incomplete, which means that little effort would be required to make rapid implementation of the existing monitoring and risk assessment protocols designed for honeybees. Finally, it was clear at the  colloquium  that  effective  communication  and  information  flow  among  scientists,  beekeepers, farmers, decision makers and other parties is essential, not only for risk assessment and management purposes, but also to ensure that appropriate research is conducted and communicated. In conclusion, global  declines  in  pollinators  require  integrated  and  more  tightly  coordinated  actions  at  EU  and international  scales.  On  the  basis  of  the  work  of  the  EFSA  Bee  Task  Force (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/beehealth.htm?wtrl=01)  to  bring  together  efforts  and advances made by involved partners and stakeholders, it is timely for EFSA to strengthen scientific networking and collaborations at EU and other international levels, to avoid duplication of work, to enhance cross-fertilisation across and between disciplines, and to promote horizontal approaches to move towards integrated risk assessment of bee health.  Integrated and coordinated actions on bees  EFSA Journal 2013;11(7):e11071  3 The detailed outcomes of the discussion of the colloquium will be published as a Summary Report on the  EFSA  website  later  this  year  and  general  information  related  to  this  scientific  colloquium, including the programme, presentations  and briefing notes for the discussion groups are currently available on the EFSA’s website (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/events/event/130515.htm).   About the Authors Jean-Lou Dorne, Senior Scientific Officer at the EFSA Scientific Committee and Emerging Risks unit since 2006. Tony Hardy, Chair of the Scientific Committee since 2012 and Overall Chair of the EFSA Scientific Colloquium XVIII. Agnès Rortais, Scientific Officer at the EFSA Scientific Committee and Emerging Risks Unit since 2008, coordinator of the EFSA ‘Bee Task Force’.  Jane Stout, Senior Lecturer, Research Group leader at the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College of Dublin, Ireland since 2003 and Overall Rapporteur of the EFSA Scientific Colloquium XVIII.  REFERENCES EFSA Panel on Plant Protection Products and their Residues (PPR), 2012. Scientific Opinion on the science behind the development of a risk assessment of Plant Protection Products on bees (Apis mellifera,  Bombus  spp.  and  solitary  bees).  EFSA  Journal  2012;10(5):2668,  275  pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2668 EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2013. EFSA Guidance Document on the risk assessment of plant protection products on bees (Apis mellifera, Bombus spp. and solitary bees). EFSA Journal 2013;11(7):3295, 266 pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2013.3295   

Editorial: EFSA calls for integrated and coordinated actions at EU and international levels to address global declines of pollinators

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Crossref

Directory of Open Access Journals