Traditionally, measurement of the acute toxicity of pesticides to beneficial
arthropods has relied largely on the determination of an acute
median lethal dose or concentration. However, the estimated lethal
dose during acute toxicity tests may only be a partial measure of
the deleterious effects. In addition to direct mortality induced by
pesticides, their sublethal effects on arthropod physiology and behavior
must be considered for a complete analysis of their impact.
An increasing number of studies and methods related to the identi-
fication and characterization of these effects have been published in
the past 15 years. Review of sublethal effects reported in published
literature, taking into account recent data, has revealed new insights
into the sublethal effects of pesticides including effects on learning
performance, behavior, and neurophysiology. We characterize
the different types of sublethal effects on beneficial arthropods, focusing
mainly on honey bees and natural enemies, and we describe
the methods used in these studies. Finally, we discuss the potential
for developing experimental approaches that take into account these
sublethal effects in integrated pest management and the possibility
of integrating their evaluation in pesticide registration procedures