10
Sep
Review of Scientific Literature Finds All Pesticide Classes Threaten Nontarget Organisms and Biodiversity
(Beyond Pesticides, September 10, 2025) Published earlier this year, a review of over 1,700 studies in Nature Communications finds pesticides affect a diverse range of nontarget organisms and contribute to global biodiversity loss. The authors* reveal “negative responses of the growth, reproduction, behaviour and other physiological biomarkers within terrestrial and aquatic systems†for nontarget plants, animals, and microorganisms. “To our knowledge, there has been no systematic and overarching synthesis of how different types of pesticides affect the diversity of multiple non-target eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms across all trophic levels,†the researchers write. They continue, “Furthermore, current syntheses have not considered how the impacts of pesticides differ globally across climatic zones or for major mechanisms of exposure, such as those acting in aquatic or terrestrial environments.†In particular, pesticide regulatory risk assessments analyze a limited range of model species, including rats, zebrafish, clawed frogs, honeybees, and earthworms, among others. As such, they are unlikely to capture the variety of responses to pesticide exposure seen across the diversity of species and communities found in both managed and natural systems,†the authors state. *Authors include Beyond Pesticides 2023 National Forum speaker Dave Goulson—see the Daily News on his keynote address here. Research Results […]
