No Difference in Arthropod Abundance in Bt, Non-Bt Cotton Fields

No significant differences on species abundance and dynamics of ground-dwelling arthropod species were found when Bt and non-Bt cotton was used. The three year study conducted in growers’ fields in Georgia (USA) using standard practices, was done to provide information to help address the concern that the reduced insecticide use in transgenic cotton varieties may exert a variety of effects on ground-dwelling predator communities.

Sixty-five taxa represented by 38,980 ground-dwelling arthropods (carabids, cicindelines, staphylinids, dermapterans, heteropterans and araneids) that are important for cotton pest management were recorded in the survey. The arthropods were collected using pitfall traps placed at the site and were collected each week during the study. Except for one carabid, no other predatory ground-dwelling taxa were found unique to a cotton genotype or year.

The results of this study by J.B. Torres and J.R. Ruberson were published by the Annals of Applied Biology. It can be accessed by journal subscribers at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7348.2006.00087.x.