Transportability of non‐target arthropod field data for the use in environmental risk assessment of genetically modified maize in Northern Mexico

Abstract

In country, non-target arthropod (NTA) field evaluations are required to comply with the regulatory process for cultivation of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico. Two sets of field trials, Experimental Phase and Pilot Phase, were conducted to identify any potential harm of insect-protected and glyphosate-tolerant maize (MON-89Ø34-3 × MON-88Ø17-3 and MON-89Ø34-3 × MON-ØØ6Ø3-6) and glyphosatetolerant maize (MON-ØØ6Ø3-6) to local NTAs compared to conventional maize. NTA abundance data were collected at 32 sites, providing high geographic and environmental diversity within maize production areas from four ecological regions (ecoregions) in northern Mexico. The most abundant herbivorous taxa collected included field crickets, corn flea beetles, rootworm beetles, cornsilk flies, aphids, leafhoppers, plant bugs and thrips while the most abundant beneficial taxa captured were soil mites, spiders, predatory ground beetles, rove beetles, springtails (Collembola), predatory earwigs, ladybird beetles, syrphid flies, tachinid flies, minute pirate bugs, parasitic wasps and lacewings.Across the taxa analysed, no statistically significant differences in abundance were detected between GM maize and the conventional maize control for 69 of the 74 comparisons (93.2%) indicating that the single or stacked insect-protected and herbicide-tolerant GM traits generally exert no marked adverse effects on the arthropod populations compared with conventional maize. The distribution of taxa observed in this study provides evidence that irrespective of variations in overall biodiversity of a given ecoregion, important herbivore, predatory and parasitic arthropod taxa within the commercial maize agroecosystem are highly similar indicating that relevant data generated in one ecoregion can be transportable for the risk assessment of the same or similar GM crop in another ecoregion.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Impact of Transgenic Cry1Ab/2Aj Maize on Abundance of Non-Target Arthropods in the Field

“…The results in this study showed no significant differences on the composition, species richness ( S ), Shannon–Wiener diversity index ( H′ ), evenness index ( J ), Simpson’s dominant concentration ( C ), community similarity and ecosystem functioning composition of the NTAs community between transgenic insect-resistant maize (SK12-5 transgenic Cry1Ab/2Aj ) and the non-GE maize. These results are consistent with previous studies showing that Bt maize producing Cry1Ab [ 18 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ], Cry1Ab and Cry2Ab [ 45 ], Cry1A.105 and Cry2Ab [ 46 , 47 ], Cry1Ac [ 48 , 49 , 50 ], Cry1A.105 and Cry2Ab and Cry3Bb [ 51 ], Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac [ 52 ], Cry1Ab and VIP3A [ 53 ], Cry1F [ 54 , 55 , 56 ], Cry1Ah [ 57 ], Cry1Ie [ 58 , 59 , 60 ], Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1 [ 55 , 61 ], Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1 and Cry1F [ 55 , 61 ], Cry3Bb [ 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ] and VIP 3A [ 66 ] insecticidal proteins did not affect populations of NTAs in the field. Similarly, there were no significant effects detected in the majority of such filed experiments with Bt cotton and Bt rice [ 37 , 67 , 68 , 69 ].…”

Assessment of potential impacts associated with gene flow from transgenic hybrids to Mexican maize landraces

“…The food, feed, and environmental safety of GM maize, as well as their benefits to society, have been demonstrated by global cultivation and consumption of GM maize for over two decades and by studies that showed phenotypic, ecological, and compositional equivalence of GM and conventional crops (Corrales et al 2018; Phipps and Park 2002; Horak et al 2007; Drury et al 2008; Harrigan et al 2009; Ridley et al 2011; Sammons et al 2014; Nakai et al 2015; Horak et al 2015a, b; ISAAA 2016; Heredia-Diaz et al 2016). However, in spite of food, feed, and environmental safety record of GM crops, there remains some hesitation to accepting biotechnology products (ISAAA 2016) and questions have been raised regarding the potential impact that commercial cultivation of GM crops might have in regions where native landraces are traditionally grown by farmers.…”

Transportability of Conclusions From Confined Field Trials: A Case Study Using the Virus Resistant Transgenic Bean Developed in Brazil

“…Only if a specific risk hypothesis is identified for a particular receiving environment, that cannot be addressed by the available information, local CFTs might be required to generate new information. There is published evidence supporting transportability of data generated in different geographies for the ERA of transgenic soybean and maize ( Horak et al, 2015 ; Nakai et al, 2015 ; Ahmad et al, 2016 ; Heredia Díaz et al, 2017 ; Corrales Madrid et al, 2018 ; Clawson et al, 2019 ; Matsushita et al, 2020 ). These publications show that, even when climate and production practices may be different, the environmental safety conclusions from the comparative assessments are consistent across geographies provided that studies are run across a broad range of conditions.…”

“…Based on the premise that “studies conducted in different countries may be relevant and can help risk assessors in making informed safety decisions” ( Garcia-Alonso et al, 2014 ), recent reports support transportability showing that environmental safety conclusions from comparative assessments are consistent across geographies ( Horak et al, 2015 ; Nakai et al, 2015 ; Ahmad et al, 2016 ; Heredia Díaz et al, 2017 ; Corrales Madrid et al, 2018 ; Clawson et al, 2019 ; Matsushita et al, 2020 ).…”

“…When a specific environmental risk hypothesis that is a particular concern for a receiving environment is identified during problem formulation, the need to consider the similarity of climatic conditions or agronomic practices could become relevant to enable transportability ( Corrales Madrid et al, 2018 ). If after comparing environments those concerns are not addressed by the available studies, then local CFTs may be justified.…”