The impact of neonicotinoids on predation capacity in spiders

Gleb Tugushev

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

The use of pesticides in agriculture can have a negative impact on the stability of ecological systems. Neonicotinoids are commonly used insecticides, but their impact on the behavior of spiders, which play an important role as predators in agroecosystems, has not been studied enough. The first part of the thesis, literature review, describes the sublethal effects of neonicotinoids on arthropods and shows that pesticides of the neonicotinoids family differently affect behavior, development and internal processes in arthropods. The second part contains a description and results of my own experiment. The spiders Philodromus cespitum (Walckenaer, 1802) were divided into groups treated with several types of neonicotinoids. The topical and tarsal contacts were tested. Then the spiders were placed to Petri dishes with three different concentrations of Drosophila melanogaster (Meigen, 1830). Killed flies were replaced by living ones. In the topical treatment experiment both factors (treatment and prey density) and their interactions were statistically significant, but effects were very different for each neonicotinoid. Only treatment factor was significant in the tarsal contact experiment.

Keywords

neonicotinoids, predation ability, spiders, sublethal effect

Jazyk práce: English

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 24. 4. 2018

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedúci: doc. RNDr. Pavel Saska, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Bachelor programme / odbor:
Environmental Scinces / Applied Ecology