Bt Toxin Has No Effects on Survival, Pollen Consumption, or Learning of Honey Bees
May 4, 2016| |
Scientists from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) reported in Journal of Economic Entomology that Cry1Ie toxin has no effect on the survival, pollen consumption, and olfactory learning of honey bees, a non-target insect of Bt crops.
CAAS scientist Ping-Li Dai and colleagues conducted the study in controlled laboratory conditions wherein the worker bees were exposed to different concentrations of Cry1Ie toxin (20, 200, or 20,000 ng/ml). As positive control, some bees were exposed to a sublethal concentration of imidacloprid, an insect neurotoxin.
Results showed that Cry1Ie toxin carries no risk to survival, pollen consumption, or learning capabilities of young adult honey bees. On the other hand, honey bees exposed to imidacloprid exhibited changes in learning behavior as well as in pollen consumption compared with the Cry1Ie groups.
Read the research article in Journal of Economic Entomology.
| |
Biotech Updates is a weekly newsletter of ISAAA, a not-for-profit organization. It is distributed for free to over 22,000 subscribers worldwide to inform them about the key developments in biosciences, especially in biotechnology. Your support will help us in our mission to feed the world with knowledge. You can help by donating as little as $10.
-
See more articles:
-
News from Around the World
- From Plant to Crop: The Past, Present, and Future of Plant Breeding
- Uganda's Farmers & Youths Petition Parliament to Pass the Biosafety Bill into Law
- ISAAA Report on Biotech Crops Launched in Burkina Faso
- Scientists Use Nanoparticles to Boost Crop Growth with Reduced Fertilizer
- Texas AgriLife Scientists Study 'War of Plants'
- Prion-like Protein Found in Plants
- Researchers Discover Plant Mechanism that Regulates Flowering in Warm Temperatures
- Plant Biotech Continues to Gain Ground in the Philippines
- Scientists Develop New Gene-Detecting Technology that Could Bring Super Wheat
-
Research Highlights
- Bt Toxin Has No Effects on Survival, Pollen Consumption, or Learning of Honey Bees
- Overexpression of AtGchI Increases Folate Precursors in Common Bean Seeds
-
Beyond Crop Biotech
- The Herring Genome Provides Insight on How Species Adapt to the Environment
-
From the BICs
- UBIC-NARO Showcases Information on Modern Biotech at Agribiz Expo
- Policy Makers Attend Biotech and Biosafety Sensitization Seminar Burkina Faso
-
Announcements
- Banana Research in Africa: Modern Breeding Techniques, Regulatory and Biosafety Issues
-
Read the latest: - Biotech Updates (December 4, 2024)
- Gene Editing Supplement (November 27, 2024)
- Gene Drive Supplement (February 22, 2023)
-
Subscribe to BU: - Share
- Tweet