This Small Business Innovative Research Phase I project is to develop a broad band detection system for air toxicity. Our overall objective is to show that honey bee orientation and locomotor behaviors can be used as reliable and measurable indicators of certain airborne toxicants. Locomotor sufficiency and directional orientation are behaviors that should unambiguously indicate toxicant exposure. Nearly all airborne toxicants affect the sensory systems or neuromuscular coordination of honey bees, either through cuticular absorption or inhalation,. Above threshold exposures, neurological and motor impairment should progressively degrade efficiency of movement of bees toward a goal. The resulting application builds upon our proven bee colony real-time monitoring and data delivery system. The proposed project introduces new features to: (1) demonstrate that honey bee orientation and movement at the hive exhibit unique responses upon exposure to airborne toxicants, (2) quantify dose-response relationships to the tested toxicant, (3) determine lower threshold concentrations for measurable response; (4) determine whether other environmental perturbations could elicit a similar behavioral response, and (4) demonstrate that a bee colony will display measurable responses across a range of exposures in less than 30 minutes, over a two week demonstration period. These studies will facilitate construction of semi-quantitative response profiles for a hazard evaluation system, and for benchmarking bee responses to existing human exposure risk data, resulting in a report on the efficacy of using bee behaviors to monitor health hazards from airborne toxicants, as well as a plan for a hive-mounted device that can be incorporated into our existing real-time monitoring/reporting systems, leading to Phase II application, and Phase III activities and self-sufficiency.
Benefits: Honey bees provide a unique capability as a organismal biomonitor bees survey wide arrays, with foragers ranging out to 1-2 km from their hives and then returning. Bees have successfully been used to detect and map the distribution of contaminants based on environmental samples taken at the hive. The hardware and software necessary for continuous real-time monitoring of overall colony activities is in place. Bee AlertÂ’s founders have filed for national and international patents on these systems, and as such, a field deployable platform already exists, reducing the overall logistics and costs of implementing a honey bee sensor system for air toxicants. Measurements of bee movements should identify a broad range of toxic hazards affecting the central nervous system and affecting higher order functionality. Because bees respond to the cumulative effects of exposures to toxicants, they should be able to distinguish not only exposures to individual chemicals but also chemical mixtures and unsuspected materials. Since bees are self-sustaining, they are routinely moved and can be stored for days, weeks, and months prior to use. The experimental work for Phase I is designed to identify and minimize interferences caused by variations in environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, and air borne particulates while continuously measuring air quality. In addition, the hive-mounted sensor system, if warranted, can include devices to stabilize parameters such as temperature. There currently is no wide area, reliable, fast response sampling system available for continuous, real-time monitoring of a full range of developing airborne toxic conditions needed for force health protection under field conditions. Standard sampling hardware tends to be chemical specific, rather than encompass a wide range of toxic materials (TIMs) and toxic industrial chemicals (TICs). Although it is increasingly recognized that a wide range and mixture of chemicals may pose hazards to soldiers, currently human effects must be predicted from measured chemical concentrations of the toxicant. This is difficult or impossible where developing hazards are due to unsuspected chemicals or chemical mixtures. Also, interferrents such as the smoke and oil encountered in Iraq may nullify the effectiveness of sensitive instruments. How to provide real-time indications of exposure to unrecognized or unknown airborne toxics is a capability that needs to be provided, not only to protect troops but also to effect operating and support cost reduction (OSCR). Honey bees probably are not well suited for monitoring indoor air quality, but they excel out-of-doors. Potential applications extend from force protection during deployment to protecting the soldier in a garrison and may involve chemicals ranging from environmental pollutants to weapons of mass destruction. Because the proposed system can be incorporated inside a beehive, the system should be usable both day and night and in all types of weather, with the system providing true area sampling during the day on warm days, and acting like a conventional point monitoring, air quality station at night or during periods of cold or inclement weather. Ability to quickly discover exposure as evidenced by a measurable effect also has use as an emergency response system. Finally, bees can provide information useful not only for human health protection but also for ecological monitoring, offering managers tools for identifying both human and ecological health hazards and for help in managing potential risks.
Keywords: Air Toxicity Monitoring, Toxic Industrial Chemicals, Behavioral Endpoints, Wide Area Biomonitor, Real-time Monitoring, Biomonitoring Platform, Honey Bee
