The Effect of Glyphosate on the Navigation of Apis Mellifera

Overview

The purpose of this project was to learn if the herbicide glyphosate negatively impacts the navigational abilities of the western honey bee (Apis mellifera). It was hypothesized that if honey bees ingest a sublethal amount of glyphosate, their navigational abilities will decrease in the form of slower times and increased regressions when completing a maze to an indoor observation hive. Glyphosate (the active ingredient in RoundUp) is an organophosphorus compound that serves as a non-selective herbicide used for killing plants. The isopropylamine salt of glyphosate inhibits the shikimic acid pathway of both plants and microorganisms. The result is an incapacity to produce necessary proteins. To learn how the herbicide affected honey bee navigation, an indoor honey bee hive colony was established in a controlled environment. Different doses of glyphosate were administered to each honey bee, including a full sublethal dose (ED₅₀) and a half sublethal dose (ED₂₅). Honey bees were fed a sucrose and glyphosate solution in a separate terrarium for two hours. Simple and complex mazes were constructed and the time taken to complete each as well as the number of regressions was measured for each group. This process was used in an ED₅₀ group for both maze designs in a post 24 hour trial. The same procedure was conducted for the ED₂₅ dosed honey bees in the simple and complex mazes in a post 24 hour trial. The effect of glyphosate was found to be dose dependent because the amount of time taken for a honey bee to complete a simple and complex maze increased exponentially with the amount of glyphosate the bees were exposed to. The post 24 hour results showed a decrease in the amount of time taken to complete the mazes, however, the results maintained a statistically significant difference from the control group. Each honey bee exposed to glyphosate experienced decreased motor skills, abnormal motion, lack of spatial awareness and increased regressions.

Competition history

• AJAS 2018 Category not listed

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Animal Sciences projects
• AJAS Animal Sciences projects
• Every AJAS 2018 project