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1 April 2009 Transgenic Insecticidal Crops and Natural Enemies: A Detailed Review of Laboratory Studies
Gabor L. Lövei, David A. Andow, Salvatore Arpaia
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Abstract

This review uses a data-driven, quantitative method to summarize the published, peer-reviewed literature about the impact of genetically modified (GM) plants on arthropod natural enemies in laboratory experiments. The method is similar to meta-analysis, and, in contrast to a simple author-vote counting method used by several earlier reviews, gives an objective, data-driven summary of existing knowledge about these effects. Significantly more non-neutral responses were observed than expected at random in 75% of the comparisons of natural enemy groups and response classes. These observations indicate that Cry toxins and proteinase inhibitors often have non-neutral effects on natural enemies. This synthesis identifies a continued bias toward studies on a few predator species, especially the green lacewing, Chrysoperla cornea Stephens, which may be more sensitive to GM insecticidal plants (16.8% of the quantified parameter responses were significantly negative) than predators in general (10.9% significantly negative effects without C. cornea). Parasitoids were more susceptible than predators to the effects of both Cry toxins and proteinase inhibitors, with fewer positive effects (18.0%, significant and nonsignificant positive effects combined) than negative ones (66.1%, significant and nonsignificant negative effects combined). GM plants can have a positive effect on natural enemies (4.8% of responses were significantly positive), although significant negative (21.2%) effects were more common. Although there are data on 48 natural enemy species, the database is still far from adequate to predict the effect of a Bt toxin or proteinase inhibitor on natural enemies.

© 2009 Entomological Society of America
Gabor L. Lövei, David A. Andow, and Salvatore Arpaia "Transgenic Insecticidal Crops and Natural Enemies: A Detailed Review of Laboratory Studies," Environmental Entomology 38(2), 293-306, (1 April 2009). https://doi.org/10.1603/022.038.0201
Received: 7 September 2007; Accepted: 1 November 2008; Published: 1 April 2009
JOURNAL ARTICLE
14 PAGES

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KEYWORDS
biosafety
laboratory experiments
natural enemies
review
transgenic plants
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