Impacts, interventions and indicators for Integrated Pollinator Pesticide Mitigation

Pesticides used to control pests and benefit agricultural production can adversely affect pollinating insects and their pollination services. To manage pollinator pesticide-related risk while maintain food production, we need a good understanding of the contexts (landscape and pollinator types) in which there may be a significant negative impact, well-balanced measures to reduce the risks and indicators that simplify the tracking of measure effectiveness and risk reduction. In this project, we 1) use data on species richness and abundance of pollinators (wild bees, bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies) from the EU-funded RestPoll and previous projects and relate to model-predicted pesticide risk and landscape type, 2) experimentally evaluate whether flower plantings can reduce pesticide impacts on bumblebee sentinels and 3) develop and test a biological indicator, PollSPEAR, along with a pollen-based risk index, to more easily monitor mitigation measure effectiveness and pesticide use impacts on pollinator communities. Pesticide impacts on organism communities is something that is largely missing in current pesticide risk assessment. We apply the new knowledge together with actors in Swedish and European pesticide risk assessment and agricultural policy, with the aim of reducing pesticide-related risks, halting the decline of farmland biodiversity and maintaining sustainable pest control and agricultural production.