Development of In Situ Imidacloprid Visualization Technique for Tomatoes using iMScope

Neonicotinoid pesticide is assumed to be one of the causes of large-scale loss of honey bees and their abnormal behavior in recent years. Although neonicotinoid pesticides are known to be systemic in nature, which implies that they are highly penetrative and can be transported easily through organisms, there are almost no case studies examining penetration pathways of pesticides. This report describes a technique for determining penetration pathways of pesticides using imaging mass spectrometry with neonicotinoid imidacloprid used as the sample.