Impact of Bt -corn MON88017 in comparison to three conventional lines on Trigonotylus caelestialium (Kirkaldy) (Heteroptera: Miridae) field densities. Rauschen, S., Schultheis, E., Pagel-Wieder, S., Schuphan, I., & Eber, S. Transgenic Research, 18(2):203-214, Springer, 2009.
Impact of Bt -corn MON88017 in comparison to three conventional lines on Trigonotylus caelestialium (Kirkaldy) (Heteroptera: Miridae) field densities [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
In Europe, Bt-corn resistant against the European Corn Borer has until now been the only genetically modified plant to be grown commercially. With the advent of the Western Corn Rootworm Bt-corn varieties with resistance against Coleoptera will become important. The cultivation of Bt-plants may have negative impacts on non-target organisms, i.e. all species not explicitly targeted by a given Bt-crop. One prominent non-target group in corn are the herbivorous plant bugs (Heteroptera: Miridae). They are common, abundant and exposed to the Cry-protein. We therefore assessed the potential impact of the cultivation of the Cry3Bb1-expressing Bt-corn variety MON88017 and three conventional varieties on this group. Trigonotylus caelestialium (Kirkaldy) was the most abundant plant bug at the experimental field. There was no evidence for a negative impact of MON88017 on this species, despite its considerable exposure to Cry3Bb1 demonstrated with ELISA. The conventional corn varieties, however, had a consistent and significant influence on the field densities of this species over all three growing seasons.

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