科学美国人60秒:Pesticides Act as Honeybee Contraceptives

Over the last year, beekeepers in the U.S. lost nearly half their honeybee hives. And there are a lot of suspected culprits for this so-called beepocalypse—from parasitic mites, to viruses, to simple land use changes. But a study out earlier this year pointed to another possibility: poor sperm quality among the drone bees, leading to colony crashes. And now another group of researchers may have found a reason for the subpar sperm: neonicotinoid pesticides. These substances contain chemicals similar to nicotine and affect insect nervous systems.
在过去一年，美国的养蜂人员蜜蜂数量减少了一半。对于这次蜜蜂的大灾难，有很多的嫌疑犯哦——如病毒寄生、土地使用的简单的变化。但是，今年年初发表的一项研究指出了另外一种可能：雄峰的精子质量不良，导致了这场种族灾难。现在另外一组研究人员发现了雄峰精子质量不正常的原因：碱类农药杀虫剂。这些农药中含有类似尼古丁的物质，这种物质会影响蜜蜂的神经系统。

"So for the drones that were exposed to pesticides during development, it appears there were more dead sperm in their reproductive tracts." Geoff Williams, an entomologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland and Agroscope, a Swiss federal research facility.
在雄峰成长的过程中，接触了杀虫剂，这导致其生殖过程中，会产生更多的死精子。杰夫·威廉姆斯是瑞士伯尔尼大学的昆虫学家。Agroscope是瑞士联邦的一所研究所。

Williams and his colleagues studied the effects of two neonicotinoid pesticides on honeybee drones, genetically assigned to mate with queens. "They've got really big eyes so they can identify these queens flying through the air. They eat and have sex. Or try to have sex at least."
威廉姆斯和同事们研究了两种烟碱类农药对雄峰的影响，确切地来说，是对蜂王交配的雄蜂的影响。“这些雄蜂长着大大的眼睛，在空中飞行，他们可以认出这些蜂王，与之交配。抑或试图与蜂王进行交配。”

But in 20 honeybee hives Williams and his collaborators found that those drones exposed to standard environmental levels of the pesticides were shorter-lived, thus having fewer opportunities to mate. And even if the drones did survive, they had nearly 40 percent fewer living sperm than did control bees—meaning the pesticides were acting like honeybee contraceptives. The study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
但是，在威廉姆斯和同事们研究的20个蜂巢中，这些雄蜂接触了正常环境中杀虫剂，而导致寿命减少，这使其与蜂王交配的机会减少。即使雄蜂未被杀虫剂杀死，但其精子的数量与实验室的蜜蜂相比减少了40%，这就相当于农药充当了蜜蜂的避孕药。该研究结果发表在《皇家协会B》杂志上。

Williams says pesticides are just one of many factors assaulting bees. But it looks like the way farmers treat some crops could adversely affect the pollinators those crops also rely on.
威廉姆斯表示，杀虫剂只是杀死蜜蜂的因素之一。但是，农民处理庄稼也会对庄稼的授粉者产生不利影响。