Scientists Investigate Effects of Cry1Ac Stingless Bee Larvae
Species of stingless bees like Trigona spinipes are known as important pollinators in tropical ecosystems. Thus, Maria Augusta Lima from Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Brazil, together with other scientists, conducted a study to test the possible effects on T. spinipes larvae of Cry1Ac-containing diet. Cry1Ac is a protein from Bacillus thuringiensis expressed in insect resistant cotton plants.
After rearing stingless bees, the team provided the larvae with diets of different treatments: pure larval diet, diluted larval diet, larval diet diluted with Cry1Ac solution. Results showed Bt protein ingestion did not affect the development of worker larvae. However, diluted larval diet caused a slight increase in larval mortality. Therefore, Cry1Ac has no harmful effects on stingless bees under field conditions.
Read the abstract of the study at http://www.springerlink.com/content/5u401v065g2162t1/.
This article is part of the Crop Biotech Update, a weekly summary of world developments in agri-biotech for developing countries, produced by the Global Knowledge Center on Crop Biotechnology, International Service for the Aquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications SEAsiaCenter (ISAAA)
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