Testing impacts of large-scale aerial spraying to control pine forest disease vectors on nontarget beneficial insects under realistic field conditions are needed. Responses of pollinators and terrestrial insects to aerial applications of a neonicotinoid insecticide, thiacloprid, used for pine sawyer beetle control were studied in Yangsan city, GN province. Aerial applications were made with Bell 206 helicopter at dusk in late May in 2017 and 2018. We deployed pollinators (honeybee and bumblebee hives and caged bees) before the spray and checked mortality after spray. Terrestrial insects were collected using pitfall traps. A Before-After Control-Impact analysis at each location was conducted to compare changes.
Results/Conclusions
Numbers of bee dead in front of hive were not significant, but the parameters for total colony strength indicators were slightly lower for bees. From the local farmers apiaries located within 5 Km radius did not show significant mortality. Diversity of ground beetle communities were not different between treatment and control sites. Slight change in the biological parameters such as the length of legs was noticed, but this should be carefully measured further. The results showed that the sprays had minimal impact on overall community biodiversity. Since the application cover large scale, the impact area also would be larger than our experimental plots. Thus careful and sophisticated evaluation of the nontarget impact is necessary with larger scale study which is being implemented