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Effects of transgenic cry1Ie maize on non-lepidopteran pest abundance, diversity and community composition

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Abstract

Non-lepidopteran pests are exposed to, and may be influenced by, Bt toxins when feeding on Bt maize that express insecticidal Cry proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). In order to assess the potential effects of transgenic cry1Ie maize on non-lepidopteran pest species and ecological communities, a 2-year field study was conducted to compare the non-lepidopteran pest abundance, diversity and community composition between transgenic cry1Ie maize (Event IE09S034, Bt maize) and its near isoline (Zong 31, non-Bt maize) by whole plant inspections. Results showed that Bt maize had no effects on non-lepidopteran pest abundance and diversity (Shannon–Wiener diversity index, Simpson’s diversity index, species richness, and Pielou’s index). There was a significant effect of year and sampling time on those indices analyzed. Redundancy analysis indicated maize type, sampling time and year totally explained 20.43 % of the variance in the non-lepidopteran pest community composition, but no association was presented between maize type (Bt maize and non-Bt maize) and the variance. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis showed that sampling time and year, rather than maize type had close relationship with the non-lepidopteran pest community composition. These results corroborated the hypothesis that, at least in the short-term, the transgenic cry1Ie maize had negligible effects on the non-lepidopteran pest abundance, diversity and community composition.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Xianghong Yu from Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences for the statistical analysis advice. This research was supported by the Genetically Modified Organisms Breeding Major Projects (2014ZX08011-003).

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  1. State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, MOA – CABI Joint Laboratory for Bio-Safety, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100193, China

    Jingfei Guo, Kanglai He, Shuxiong Bai, Tiantao Zhang, Fuxin Wang & Zhenying Wang

  2. Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yunjun Liu

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  1. Jingfei Guo
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Guo, J., He, K., Bai, S. et al. Effects of transgenic cry1Ie maize on non-lepidopteran pest abundance, diversity and community composition. Transgenic Res 25, 761–772 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-016-9968-y

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