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Bumblebees exposed to a novel insecticide have reduced reproductive output due to impaired brood care
Leeah I Richardson1, Jennie DeVore1, Harry Siviter1,2, Shalene Jha1,3, Felicity Muth1,4. 1University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States; 2University of Bristol, Bristol, , United Kingdom; 3Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, Texas, United States; 4University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States

In group-living animals, offspring care can be�a major factor that determines survival to adulthood. In these cases, juvenile survival is not only impacted�by factors that directly affect mortality but is also indirectly by the quality of care they receive. Bees present a useful system to study the interaction between anthropogenic stressors, such as pesticide exposure, and adult care.�Here we tested two hypotheses to determine how the novel pesticide flupyradifurone affects bumblebee larvae: 1) The pesticide directly causes reductions to growth and survival; 2) The pesticide impairs offspring care, causing indirect impairments to growth and survival. We tested hypothesis 1 by hand-feeding larvae a range of the pesticide�concentrations and measuring mortality and growth. We then assessed the second hypotheses in a cross-fostering experiment with pesticide-treated and untreated adults, so�both larval treatment groups experienced both adult treatment groups. We found that only the exposure status of the adults�affected larval outcomes. This suggests that the indirect effects of exposed adults drives overall negative effects on larval development.