## 4 Discussion  
Pesticide toxicity tests on insects are typically conducted by quantifying the pesticide before exposure without confirming the actual dose reached or absorbed by the insect. These tests are typically confined to controlled laboratory settings [41]. The purpose of detecting pesticides in insects is to assess the efficacy of pesticides concerning both target and non-target insects serving as a bioindicator. This approach aims to ascertain the actual quantity of pesticide reaching insects and to elucidate the responses of various insect groups to pesticide applications in crop environments. The use of different entomological groups for pesticide detection has proven to be a valuable strategy for verifying how pesticides affect the environment [42]. [PERSON] et al. [43], while looking for pesticide residues in _Vespa velutina_ nests, found contamination in at least 53% of the nests, with detection ranging from 0.5 to 19.5 ng/g (using the QuEChERS extraction method coupled with HPLC-MS/MS). The authors noted that wasps, being predators of honeybees (_Apis mellifera_), are at a higher risk of pesticide exposure due to their predatory feeding habits. Regarding the residual dynamics of pesticide residues in the environment, it is anticipated that insect groups more exposed to pesticide applications would have a higher residual load of pesticides. This perspective aligns with existing knowledge, such as the accumulation of DDT in food webs [44], underlining the potential for predatory insects and parasitoids to carry a significant pesticide burden. The outcomes of this study affirm the presence of pesticide residues in insects collected from lettuce crops, indicating their potential exposure to an array of agricultural chemicals employed in these fields. A significant finding of this investigation is that 52.3% of the insect samples displayed the presence of chlorpyrifos when the SPME method was used. In this work, several entomological families such as Braconidae, Hemerobiidae, Ichneumonidae, and Pteromalidae also showed high residual loads of pesticides. These families consist of numerous predatory and parasitoid insect species. The strategy of employing functional or phylogenetic groups of insects to understand the pathways of pesticides in the environment is already a strategy employed, particularly for aquatic insects and bees [45]. With the approach presented here, other groups of insects can also be considered for the evaluation of pesticide residues in horticultural systems. This result underscores the prevalence of chlorpyrifos contamination within the insect community inhabiting lettuce crops. Moreover, the effective application of the SPME technique in detecting chlorpyrifos is evident. Additionally, the comparison between the SPME and QuEChERS methods (Table 4) illustrates the distribution of the chlorpyrifos content in the samples. Categorizing the chlorpyrifos content into low, medium, and high ranges provides a comprehensive understanding of contamination levels within the insect population. This differentiation helpsassess the potential risks associated with the accumulation of chlorpyrifos in these insects. Furthermore, it is revealed that other pesticide residues detected using the SPME method exhibit higher detection proportions compared to those detected using the QuEChERS method, with statistically significant differences (over 17% higher; \(p>0.001\)). When examining the quantity of residues found in the samples, the SMPE method yielded a higher average across all analyzed samples than the QuEChERS method, even in cases in which no pesticide residues were present (almost 70% higher; \(p>0.001\)). These findings underscore the SMPE method's capability to detect and quantify pesticide residues with enhanced precision in terms of both detection and concentration. The disparity in results between the two methods could be attributed to the intrinsic characteristics of each extraction and analysis technique [32; 40].