Neo-nicotinoid

Many pesticides are not as novel as they may seem. Some, such as the pyre-throid and neonicotinoid insecticides, are modeled on natural insecticides. Synthetic pyrethroids are related to the natural pyrethrins (see Chapter 12), whereas the neo-nicotinoids share structural features with nicotine. In both cases, the synthetic compounds have the same mode of action as the natural products they resemble. Also, the synthetic pyrethroids are subject to similar mechanisms of metabolic detoxication as natural pyrethrins (Chapter 12). More widely, many detoxication mechanisms are relatively nonspecific, operating against a wide range of compounds that... 

Field dosages often span a very broad range, and the typical application rates , shown in Table 8.1, are for general comparison only. Nevertheless, these numbers indicate how field a.i. rates have decreased historically, as more active molecules have been developed examples include the neo-nicotinoid insecticides, triazole fungicides and sulfonylurea herbicides, which are one to two orders of magnitude more active than the early organochlorine, copper and aryloxyalkanoic acid pesticides, respectively. 

Chemical compounds that have some characters similar to nicotine have been synthesized in recent decades and have widely been used as insecticides. They are collectively called neo-nicotinoid . One of them, called clothianidin, has recently been shown to be a major cause of colony collapse disorder (massive sudden death of bees). It is believed to bind to the brain of bees (and other insects) as nicotine does, and disrupts their brain function. It has been reported that the colony collapse has dramatically decreased once neo-nicotinoid was banned in Germany. 

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