Worldwide, bird populations are declining dramatically. This is especially the case in intensely used agricultural areas where the application of neonicotinoid insecticides is thought to—unintendedly—cause a cascade of negative impacts throughout food webs. Additionally, there could be direct (sub‐) lethal impacts of neonicotinoids on birds, but to date there is no comprehensive quantitative assessment to confirm or rule out this possibility. Therefore, we use a meta‐analytical approach synthesising 1612 effect sizes from 49 studies and show that neonicotinoids consistently harm bird health, behaviour, reproduction, and survival. Thus, in addition to reduced food availability, the negative direct effects of exposure to neonicotinoids likely contribute to bird population declines globally. Our outcomes are pivotal to consider in future risk assessments and pesticide policy: despite localised bans, the metabolites and residues of neonicotinoids remain present in the environment and in birds and will thus have long‐lasting direct effects on both the individual and the population levels.

中文翻译：

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新烟碱类化合物影响鸟类生活的方方面面：荟萃分析


在全球范围内，鸟类数量正在急剧下降。在密集使用的农业地区尤其如此，人们认为新烟碱类杀虫剂的应用会无意中对整个食物网造成一连串的负面影响。此外，新烟碱类化合物可能对鸟类产生直接（亚）致命影响，但迄今为止还没有全面的定量评估来确认或排除这种可能性。因此，我们使用一种元分析方法，综合了来自 49 项研究的 1612 个效应量，并表明新烟碱类化合物始终损害鸟类的健康、行为、繁殖和生存。因此，除了食物供应减少外，接触新烟碱类化合物的负面直接影响也可能导致全球鸟类数量下降。我们的结果是未来风险评估和杀虫剂政策的关键考虑：尽管局部禁令，但新烟碱类化合物的代谢物和残留物仍然存在于环境和鸟类中，因此将对个体和种群水平产生持久的直接影响。