Let's formally state what Randy calls "my hypothesis".
"Neonics persist long enough after exposure at a sublethal level to have adverse effects on bees when other local stressors are also present."
Randy, I agree that the conversation can proceed from here by discussing the data.
Much of my recent posting was requested by you; and it was basic neurophysiology.... background, textbook stuff, not primary research (at least not for 50 years or more). I can direct you to the relevant textbooks if you want any of those comments to be "substantiated". As a professor of physiology, I usually do refer students to texts and other references and I'll be happy to do the same for you.
You also allude to the need for me to "reference my own data". This appears to be a challenge: Why am I qualified to participate in this discussion? I believe you know, but others may not, that I do not publish honeybee papers...I am a sensory neurophysiologist and my peer-reviewed, published research has to do with craniofacial development, sensory function, and comparative neurophysiology (although I have also published peer-reviewed work in female reproductive physiology). Although I work with mammals and birds, I have extensively studied insect physiology as well, since the insects have taught us much of what we know about mammals. If those credentials are not sufficient in your eyes, let's just stop wasting time now, you can stop reading from here, and I will just stop posting.
Your first point was Suchail's C14 data, and you specifically wanted me to review fig 2A. That is the IMI curve. IMI clears to below detectable levels after 30 hours. Suchail says "Imidacloprid, 5-hydroxyimidacloprid and olefin represented respectively, 50%, 9% and 8% of the actual dose. After 6 h, only 10.5% of imidacloprid were detected in honeybees and after 24 h, it could not be detected." If you look at figure 3A, you can see that "not detected" does not appear to mean "no IMI", because there is still IMI above zero. (The Y axis is different in figures 2A and 3A, as I've already pointed out.) The authors also point this out; the limits of detection are covered in the discussion, and they estimate the LOQ (limit of quantification) of IMI in the honeybee to be 0.5 micrograms IMI/kg of bee. Shall we work out how many molecules of IMI 0.5 micrograms/kg represents per bee? And then shall we discuss the implications of this residue to "sublethal problems"?
IMI metabolites are more effective receptor blockers than the parent compound, particularly olefin and 5-hydroxy imidacloprid. Let's look at those...see figures 2B and 3B. How do you interpret those figures?
Christina
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