IMIDACLOPRID: A FACTOR IN DRASTIC DECLINE OF LOBSTER IN LIS?
In the late 1980s and early 1990s the neonicitinoid pesticide IMIDACLOPRID became widely used. It’s period of wide use and application coincides closely with the drastic decline lobster Homarus americanus (American Lobster) populations in Long Island Sound. Rather than attributing the population collapse of lobster and several other Crustacea genera to disease, and the “global” warming of LIS waters, this author suggests that another factor —the widespread use of pesticides known as nicotinoids may be a significant part of the cause attributable to the disappearance of American lobsters from our local waters. Formal scientific analysis of the impact of IMIDACLOPRID and similar compounds in the marine environment should be conducted.
In 1999, at the apex of the disastrous collapse of the lobster population in Long Island Sound, the Huntington Town Board voted to freely store lobster pots and boats of the township’s struggling lobstermen in the town’s landfill site. They made the offer in the hope of sustaining the businesses of the Town’s more than one hundred lobstermen who worked in the former multimillion dollar commercial lobster industry. They assumed that, as in the past, the lobster population would recover and the boats and traps would be reclaimed. But now, nearly two decades later, the boats are gone and the remaining rusting and decayed pots are considered a threat to the town’s groundwater. Recently, (May 15, 2018) the Town Board voted to rescind the storage agreement and required all lobster pots to be removed from Town landfill. The Huntington Town Board’s decision underscored the death knell of a once grand tradition on Long Island. For perhaps a century, skippers of small boats from all along the North Shore from Northport to Mattituck went out to sea to set lobster pots to harvest the most sought after, delectable and valuable crustacean— Hommarus americanus
See Long Island Sound Study: Status and Trends: LISS Environmental Indicators (longislandsoundstudy.net).
SEE: Lobster landings for Connecticut and Long Island
Lobsters were very common in our waters in the mid 20th century. As a young boy, I caught them free diving with a simple rubber-band-propelled spear around isolated underwater rocks just off our north shore beaches in waters less than ten feet deep. And during the the sixties and seventies if you lived anywhere near the north shore, and had a small boat, and could build a few traps, and set them out, baited with trash fish—you could harvest lobsters. The catch was sparse with only one or two pots, but the thrill of seeing a big reddish-brown lobster in the dripping trap balanced on a boat rail was a great sight as well as a tasty and nutritional addition to a small families’ diet.
Those conditions did not last for by the late 90s the lobster population collapsed in Long Island Sound,
In the fall of 1999 the NYS DEC and Connecticut DEC reported that lobster landings in western LI Sound fell by 100%. These organizations reported that hundreds of thousands of lobsters had died. For Connecticut alone reports indicated a loss of income to commercial fishermen of over $16 million dollars per year. But the lobster was not the only victim of the die off. Other marine critters including the Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus) and the the Spider Crab ( Libinia sp) were also affected by population decline.
How did it happen?
Disease?
According to the Sea Grant Organization (See: seagrantsunysb.edu) marine scientists in several states tested western LI Sound lobsters for disease. They found no bacteria or viruses, but they did find a parasitic protozoan called “paramoeba” in the brain tissue of dead lobsters . Typically lobster populations affected by disease, decline for a few seasons then rebound. That was the concept that drove the Huntington Town Board to offer storage for lobster pots. The lobsters would be back and the pots needed again.
Global Warming?
Some attribute the drastic decline in population to global warming. Regional sea water temperatures have been rising over the long term. Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts, in Falmouth, MA, has been recording sea water temperatures since the 1880s. Niantic Harbor, East Lyme CT, Milford in in New haven County CT, with a shoreline in central L I Sound. is in the western end of Long Island Sound All of these stations were used to create a generalized long term graph of sea water temperatures. The composite graph shows a pattern in which the mean sea water winter temperatures in central Long Island Sound do reflect a troubling change which ranged from 1 to 3 deg Celsius from 1880 to 1940. By the 1960s the winter range of temperatures had risen to the 1-4 degrees C level and by the 1980s that increased into the 2.5 to 5 degree C level. But the drastic fall off of population in the late 1990s did not coincide with any specific spike in temperature. In fact the population of Blue Claw (Callinectes sapidus) Crabs, and Spider Crabs dropped during that period as well. The Blue Claws in Long Island Sound are at point of their most northern range. They are typically a more southern species. A warming of Long Island Sound should have INCREASED their population. But they seem to have disappeared about the same time as the lobsters.
Imidacloprid (1985)
But there may be other causes too. A new class of insecticides, called neonicotinoids, was synthesized in the 1970s. It mimicked the toxic effects of nicotine found in tobacco smoke. One of these chemical toxins produced by the Bayer Company was patented by Bayer in 1985 and labeled “Imidacloprid”. It was introduced in the early 1990s and by the late 1990s it was extensively used world wide. It became a phenomenal success almost immediately becoming the most widely used agricultural insecticide in the nation. By 1999 it was the most widely use insecticide in the world. . By 2013 virtually all corn and one third of the soybean crop in the nation was being treated with Imidacloprid (or related pesticide). Based on 2017 figures that would mean that more than 120 million acres of crop lands were laced with some form of neonicotinoid pesticide.
The result of this widespread usage was unexpected (?) lethal and sublethal effects on
non-target insect pollinators—such as bees and butterflies. The fact that these soil and foliage treatments are recurrent year after year suggest the likelihood that surface waters which drain these vast agricultural acerages may leach neonicotinoids pesticide residues into rivers and streams and standing bodies of water. In 2012-2014 the NY State Department of Environmental Protection did a study of imidacloprid in groundwater on Long Island. Their results show widespread contamination of groundwater in Long Island aquifers.
The fact that the date of introduction of these new chemicals and the collapse of the Long Island lobster population seems to coincide closely is suggestive of a possible relationship. The Sound is an enclosed marine basin in which marine water circulation is restricted and which is heavily impacted by groundwater from Long Island and by groundwater and surface water discharges from Connecticut. The Thames, Housatoinc, Quinipiac, and Connecticut rivers drain a vast area and discharge mostly into the narrow western part of the Sound.
Although almost all inquiries regarding the impact of neinicitinoids have been related to terrestrial impact and effects upon insects. Some studies have recently focused on the aquatic environment and effects upon the other group of Arthropoda —Crustacea
See Frontiers in Envronmental Science (Agroecology and Land Use Systems) 02-11-2016 (http//doi.org/10.3389/fends. 2016.00071
Francisco Sanchez-Bayo, Koichi Goya and Daisuke Hayasaka,
In Contamination of the Aquatic Environment with Neonicotinoid and its implications for Ecosystems, Sanchez-Bayo et. al., have implicated the neocicitinoid pesticides as having with widespread use and potential for transfer of residues to the aquatic environment.
Neonicotinoids (neonics) are, as their name suggests, “new nicotine-like” synthetic insecticides based on the chemical properties of the natural toxin nicotine. The authors of the above study review the history of this widely popular pesticide. In the early 1990s the first insecticide of this genera was introduced as “imidacloprid” and patented by Bayer AG in 1985. Imidacloprid was an instant success. It was claimed to be as effective as the old organophosphate and organochlorine insecticides in use since the 1940s, but without the negative environmental impacts, broad toxicity, bioaccumulation, and health problems to applicator workers caused by those older chemicals.
Because Neonicotinoids are “systemic poisons (they are often incorporated into the seed coat or are sprayed on the roots) they avoid wide contamination of surrounding areas. They are systemic poisons, that is they are absorbed (at the place of contact) and then spread naturally through the roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruit of the pant to which they are applied. Thus the farmer need only insure that a “neonic”insecticide comes into contact with some part of the plant ( for instance the germinating seed) to protect the entire adult plant from a host of insect pests which might attack, roots, leaves or fruit. This “one time” application saved farmers enormously in time and fuel costs. The economic benefits of systemic neonics were enormous and as a result in a few short years neoneicitinoids have become the “largest group of insecticides on the global market” (See Sanchez -Bayo).
Their impact on bees and other terrestrial pollinators is well known. Recent bans of certain classes of neonicitinoids has been recently imposed in the EU as a result. Some countries have banned seeds treated with neonicitinoids,
This class of chemicals (cholinesterase blockers) which affect the nervous system of the target animals (Arthropoda i.e. Crustacea and Insecta) act by blocking a class of neuro active chemicals at neuronal receptors which stop nerve transmissions. Thus they enable continuous neural impulses of affected neurons which eventually lead to the death of the neuron or neurons. (Simply stated this class of pesticide causes a form of “insect Parkinson’s disease” on the affected critter. It does not kill outright. They live on in a state of neural overactivity.). As more and more of the chemical binds to other neuronal receptors—causing increased damage to the nervous system and ultimately the death of the organism. The impact on the insect is as if it were affected with an “insect Parkinson’s disease.
Because neurons can not regenerate, the impact on target organisms often results in what the authors describe as “time-cumulative toxicity”. The targeted organism may not die immediately. But sub lethal doses have subtle effects on the nervous system which eventually lead to death. Sublethal doses on bees nervous systems may cause them to fail to return to the hive, others may have impaired movement, feeding inhibitions, or reduced or altered reproductive behaviors, or similar dysfunction leading to eventual death.
Though Sanchez Bayo studied the impact of neonicitinoids in fresh water systems, the conclusions regarding aquatic impacts can be related to enclosed marine basins such as LI Sound which are heavily affected by terrestrial run off.
It could well be that the coincidence of higher temperatures, disease outbreaks AND the introduction of neonicitinoids into the terrestrial environment surrounding LIS had a synergistic effect on the American Lobster population causing a drastic decline. Focusing our efforts only on disease outbreaks, and water temperature rises may be a terrible mistake.
Further study of the impact of the various iterations of this potent pesticide should be evaluated by appropriate studies of the impact on the marine environment and native Crustacea by the threat of imidacloprid (and similar neonicotinoids) on the marine envirnment.
With proper controls on use of this virulent pesticide, we may hope to see the American lobster and the Blue Claw return to Long Island Sound waters. .
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