Wild fauna and flora are facing variable and challenging environmental disturbances. One of the animal groups that is most impacted by this, concerns pollinators. Pollinators face multiple threats, but the spread of anthropogenic chemicals (i.e. pesticides) form a major potential driver of these threats. WildPosh is a multi-actor, transdisciplinary project whose overarching mission and ambition are to significantly improve the evaluation of risk to pesticide exposure of wild pollinators, and enhance the sustainable health of pollinators and pollination services in Europe. As chemical exposure varies geographically, across cropping systems, inside the crop system and among pollinators, we will characterise exposure by doing fieldwork in 4 countries representing the four main climatic European regions, Mediterranean, Atlantic, Continental and Boreal climate in Germany, England, Estonia and Spain. We will also develop experiments in controlled conditions on different species of bees, syrphid flies, moths and butterflies, and collect in silico data on their traits and on toxicity of pesticides.
Objectives
Determine the real-world agrochemical exposure profile of wild pollinators at landscape level, within and among sites
Characterise causal relationships between pesticides and pollinator health
Build open database on pollinator traits/distribution and chemicals to define exposure and toxicity scenario
Propose new tools for risk assessment on wild pollinators
Drive policy and practice
Actions
Provide the first pan-European quantification of the exposure hazard of pesticides to representative wild pollinators while characterising their populations
Use integrated and controlled laboratory and semi-field experiments, determining how major categories of pesticide alone and in mixtures affect pollinator health
Develop databases on ecological traits and the spatial distribution of pollinators in relation to their potential exposure to pesticide, and on pesticide use and their toxicity
Propose integrated systems-based risk assessment tools for wild pollinators
Use innovation to meet the need for monitoring tools, novel screening protocols, and practice- and policy-relevant research outputs to local, national, European, and global stakeholders
Work Packages
WP1
Monitoring scheme to determine sources and routes of pesticide exposure in environmental compartments/matrices
WP1 will:
determine optimal sampling methods and proxies for pesticide contamination in environmental compartments/matrices;
establish a site network to quantify sources and exposure routes of pesticides in agri-ecosystems;
devise and test a monitoring scheme for establishing the level of contamination of pollen/nectar/water/plant matrices/soil that can support future benchmarking;
quantify pesticide contamination across matrices/compartments collected across the monitoring scheme.
WP2
Effects of exposure to single pesticides single exposure and their mixtures on wild pollinators as novel models in laboratory and semi-field experiments
WP2 will:
evaluate the variability among wild insect pollinators of Europe in their sensitivity to pesticides;
define the extent to which semi-field sensitivity mirrors lab sensitivity to pesticide in wild pollinators;
develop OECD protocols for testing wild insect pollinators in pesticide risk assessment.
WP3
Omics of pesticide responses in pollinators
WP3 will:
elaborate MALDI-MS molecular fingerprints (MFPs) of fat bodies and haemolymph to understand the consequences of pesticides exposures on juvenile and adult wild pollinators;
assess the overall stress response to pesticides on the peptidome/proteome dysregulation by off-gel bottom-up proteomics and molecular mass imaging;
define diagnostic transcriptional signatures that can be used to predict sensitivity to pesticide exposure of pollinators in the field;
decode the molecular machinery underlying the response of pollinators to pesticide.
WP4
Data curation and in silico modelling for risk assessment
WP4 will:
compile a comprehensive trait database which will include traits reflecting sensitivity and exposure risk of European pollinators to pesticides and other stressors;
compile distributional and occurrence information on European pollinators at national and continental levels;
identify and collate data on pesticide exposure and effects, as well as on other stressors able to amplify the adverse effects on model species;
improve the existing in silico prediction methodologies for toxicity endpoints relevant to pollinators (e.g., QSAR models);
build an open-source curated database which will include information on pollinator traits and distribution, on pesticides, and on other stressors for model species.
WP5
Integrated systems-based risk assessment
WP5 will:
critically review current approaches of risk assessment and provide strategies for improvement integrating lethal and sublethal effects of single and multiple pesticides including interactions;
develop landscape models integrating pesticide exposure and hazard to inform predictive pollinator population and community risk models;
develop environmental scenarios for pesticide risk and mitigation models;
develop an integrated open-access tool for a systems-based risk assessment.
WP6
Assessing the effectiveness and feasibility of mitigation measures
WP6 will:
identify effective response options to reduce pesticide risks to wild pollinators;
synthesise WildPosh project findings and external knowledge;
develop good practice guides for practitioners to mitigate the impacts of pesticides on wild pollinators;
engage in science-policy dialogues to inform national and international policy on the development of mitigation measures.
WP7
Communication, knowledge exchange and impact
WP7 will:
raise awareness of the project through a recognisable project branding and website;
develop a Communication Plan (CP) and Plan for the Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR) to ensure the impact and long-term legacy of the project’s results;
maximise WildPosh’s outreach to relevant stakeholders of the quadruple helix model;
establish collaboration paths and synergies with land to sea ecosystems and biodiversity actors.
WP8
Project management and scientific coordination
WP8 will:
organise internal management structures for the project;
provide scientific reporting and quality control of all deliverables of the project;
coordinate the adequate financial management and reporting to the European Commission;
manage all the contractual documents, within the consortium and with the European Commission.
WP9
Ethics requirements
This work package sets out the 'ethics requirements' that the project must comply with.