Natural enemies of insect pests may be exposed to Bt proteins directly by feeding on Bt maize tissues (e.g., pollen) or indirectly by consuming prey that have fed on Bt maize. So before new GM maize varieties are commercialized, environmental risk assessments (ERA) are essential to determine potential negative effects on natural enemies that occur in agricultural ecosystems. Cry1Ie proteins have no cross resistance with Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac, Cry1Ah and Cry1F insecticidal proteins. Currently no study was conducted to evaluate the environmental risk of transgenic cry1Ie gene maize on natural enemy community biodiversity. Recently, researchers at State Key Laboratory of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection of CAAS have published a research paper on Scientific Reports about field trials to evaluate the effects of transgenic cry1Ie maize on the community characteristics of arthropod natural enemies.

This result showed that natural enemy diversity indices (Shannon-Wiener’, Simpson’s and Pielou’s index) and abundance had no significant differences between transgenic cry1Ie maize (Event IE09S034, Bt maize) and its near isoline (Zong 31, non-Bt maize). Bt maize had no time-dependent effect on the entire arthropod natural enemy community, and also no effect on community dissimilarities between Bt and non-Bt maize plots.

Principal response curves (PRC) representing the effects of Bt maize, in relation to non-Bt maize as a control, on the overall natural enemy communities from V3 to R6 stages in 2012 and 2013

This research was supported by the Genetically Modified Organisms Breeding Major Projects (2014ZX08011-003).


For more information, please visit:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4768170

or http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22102

By Jingfei Guo
guojingfei1989@126.com