Depending on the type of environmental pollution, bee contamination may occur through adhesion of particles to the insect body hairs, inhalation of pollutants via spiracles of the tracheal system or ingestion of contaminated nectar, pollen and water. During their wide-ranging foraging activity, these hymenopterans are exposed to pollutants present in the atmosphere, soil, vegetation, and water. Honey bees ( Apis mellifera L.) are commonly used as bioindicators of the level of environmental contamination. The authors also declare that even if the study was funded by Koiné-Environmental Consulting S.n.c., this absolutely does not alter their adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.įunding: The study was funded by Koiné-Environmental Consulting S.n.c., Parma, Italy The authors declare that the funder of this study, Koiné-Environmental Consulting S.n.c., provided support in the form of salaries for authors Ilaria Negri and Marco Pellecchia, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors declare that the funder of this study, Koiné-Environmental Consulting S.n.c., provided support in the form of salaries for authors Ilaria Negri and Marco Pellecchia. Received: MaAccepted: JPublished: July 6, 2015Ĭopyright: © 2015 Negri et al. We conclude that honey bees are able to collect samples of the main airborne particles emitted from different sources, therefore could be an ideal tool for monitoring such a kind of pollutants.Ĭitation: Negri I, Mavris C, Di Prisco G, Caprio E, Pellecchia M (2015) Honey Bees ( Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter. The role of both past mining activities and the industrial activity close to the study area as sources of the particulate matter is also discussed. along the costal margin of the fore wings, the medial plane of the head, and the inner surface of the hind legs). With the exception of the gut, all the analyzed body districts displayed inorganic particles, mostly concentrated in specific areas of the body (i.e. The analyses pointed to specific morphological and chemical features of the particulate, and resulted into the identification of three categories of particles: industry -, postmining -, and soil –derived. The head, wings, hind legs and alimentary canal of the bees were investigated with Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The area is included in an official list of sites of national interest for environmental remediation, and has been characterized for the effects of pollutants on the health of the resident population. Worker bees were collected from hives located in a polluted postmining area in South West Sardinia (Italy) that is also exposed to dust emissions from industrial plants. In the present work we demonstrate that bees can also be used as active samplers of airborne particulate matter. During their wide-ranging foraging activity, these hymenopterans are exposed to pollutants, thus becoming a useful tool to trace the environmental contaminants as heavy metals, pesticides, radionuclides and volatile organic compounds. Honey bees ( Apis mellifera L.) are bioindicators of environmental pollution levels.