Risks of plant protection products for beneficial arthropods

Beneficial arthropods predate on pests or parasitize them, and help to protect agricultural crops from damage. To maintain these ecosystem services, plant protection products should be used which do not harm beneficial arthropods. The industry performs studies to test the sensitivity of beneficial arthropods towards plant protection products and submits these studies as part of the pesticide registration process. The article gives an overview on the beneficial arthropods tested, the different levels of complexity of the studies, the advantages and disadvantages of the risk assessment according to ESCORT I and II as well as a procedure to use both dose-response and limit-dose studies for the risk assessment.