Collateral damage in bees due to pesticide exposure of agricultural use

Abstract

The use of pesticides is a common practice used in agricultural production to eradicate bugs. The review’s aim was to document the pesticide effect regarding bee ecologic relationship with environment and agricultural production systems. Scientific and academic reports were retrieved from Science-Direct, Scielo, JSTOR, Springerlink and Google scholar. Findings reveal that bees provide ecosystem services which are not well evaluated and according to global estimations bee’s populations are endangered. Bees present hypersusceptibility to several pesticides (insecticides). Although, bees suffer physiologic alterations including neuronal system, impairment in the reproductive cycle and immunosuppression. In conclusion, there is evidence about toxic effects of pesticides which collaterally impact crop productivity through bee-mediated pollination.