[Pollinator] neonicotinoid research in Sweden

[David Inouye]

Perhaps as early as next month the first papers should start 
appearing about a very large-scale study that has taken place in 
Sweden over the past couple of years about landscape-scale effects of 
neonicotinoid (foliar spray, I think) use on crops. I just learned 
about this today while at the joint annual meeting of the British and 
French ecological societies that I'm attending in France. Apparently 
the researchers are being very careful about not giving any results 
prior to the peer-reviewed publications.  I heard about this from a 
British researcher who says some of his graduate students had 
problems this summer because their research sites in canola fields 
were decimated by herbivores, apparently in part a consequence of the 
EU ban on use of neonicotinoids that is still in place.

David Inouye