Imidacloprid — a neonicotinoid pesticide that the US Environmental Protection Agency says can be harmful to bees — is a threat to the survival of bats, a research team said.
The team, headed by National Taiwan Normal University professor of life sciences Wu Chung-hsin (吳忠信) found that bats feeding on imidacloprid-tainted insects were unable to fly along learned paths and often got lost while hunting.
With Formosan leafnosed bats as their experimental subject, the team found that animals treated with a low dose of imidacloprid developed neural apopotosis — a process of programmed cell death — in the brain, Wu said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“The sonogram of ultrasounds emitted by such bats becomes incomplete,” Wu said on Wednesday, discussing research published in April last year in Neuroreport, a peer-reviewed journal of neuroscience.
Wu said his team monitored sonograms with a customized flight tracking device and filmed light trails from LEDs attached to the bats.
The data indicated that after long-term exposure to imidacloprid, their flight patterns differed from paths they had learned.
“What were regular flight paths become disoriented,” Wu said, adding that “some even lost their ability to catch insects.”
The team found that the toxicity of imidacloprid and high doses of the heavy metal manganese accumulated in the bodies of bats if they fed on pesticide-tainted insects.
“When toxic substances accumulate to a certain level, they damage the bats’ neurons and destroy their echolocation system,” said Wu, whose team has researched the echolocation ability of bats in Taiwan for more than 20 years.
Wu said that the team has recorded a decline in bat populations across Taiwan in recent years, speculating that the phenomenon could be the result of various environmental pollutants.
Bats serve as a “bio-index,” allowing people to determine which toxic substances are poisoning the environment, Wu said, adding that he hoped the research would alert people to the dangers of pollution.
He said that people should reduce the use of pesticides, curb pollution and learn to live more harmoniously with nature.
Imidacloprid is a broad-spectrum insecticide that works by interfering with the nerve impulses of insects, killing them. It is used to control pests on a large number of agricultural crops.
In recent years there have been reports that suggest neonicotinoid pesticides, including imidacloprid, are the cause of bees dying, hives collapsing and plummeting bee populations worldwide.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and