Chronic Effects of an Insect Growth Regulator (teflubenzuron) on the Life Cycle and Population Growth Rate of Folsomia candida

Abstract Current standard toxicity tests on nontarget soil invertebrates mainly focus on the endpoints survival and reproduction. Such results are likely insufficient to predict effects at higher organizational levels, for example, the population level. We assessed the effects of exposure to the pesticide teflubenzuron on the collembolan Folsomia candida , by performing a full life‐cycle experiment exposing single individuals via contaminated food (uncontaminated control and 0.2, 0.32, 0.48, 0.72, 1.08, and 1.6 mg/kg dry yeast). Several life‐history traits were considered by following the growth and development of newly hatched individuals over a period of 65 days. We assessed survival, body length, time to first oviposition, cumulative egg production, and hatchability of eggs. A two‐stage model was applied to calculate the population growth rate (λ) combined with elasticity analysis to reveal the relative sensitivity of λ to the effects of teflubenzuron on each life‐history parameter. Body length was the least sensitive life‐history parameter (median effective concentration = 1.10 mg teflubenzuron/kg dry yeast) followed by time to first oviposition (0.96 mg/kg), survival (median lethal concentration = 0.87 mg/kg), cumulative egg production (0.32 mg/kg), and egg hatchability (0.27 mg/kg). Population growth decreased with increasing concentrations of teflubenzuron (λ = 1.162/day in control to 1.005/day in 0.72 mg/kg dry yeast, with populations going extinct at 1.08 and 1.6 mg/kg dry yeast). Elasticity analysis showed that changes in juvenile survival had a greater impact on the population growth rate compared with the other life‐history traits. Our study provides a comprehensive overview of individual‐level effects of long‐term exposure to teflubenzuron and integrates these effects to assess the potential risk to collembolan populations. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;43:1173–1183. © 2024 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.