Effects Of Transgenic Cry1Ac/SCK Rice On Rice Planthoppers And Spiders

From July to September 2009, field investigations were carried out to explore the effects of transgenic insect-resistant rice (â…¡YKF8) with the fused genes cry1Ac and SCK on rice planthopper populations and spider communities in paddy fields at the Shoushan experimental station, Fujian Province. The nontransgenic rice isoline (â…¡YM86) was used as a control. The results show that the abundances of Sogatella furcifera adults, Nilaparvata lugens adults and planthopper nymphae were not significantly different betweenâ…¡YKF8 andâ…¡YM86 paddy fields, except N. lugens adults on Sept. 10th and planthopper nymphae on Sept. 25th were significantly higher inâ…¡YM86 paddy fields. The species richness, individual abundances, Shannon-Wiener's index, Simpson's index and Pielou's evenness index of spider communities inâ…¡YKF8 paddy fields were slightly higher than those inâ…¡YM86 paddy fields. However, none of these differences were significant.In the same year, the bottom-up effects of transgenic insect-resistant rice on N. lugens and its predatory enemy Lycosa pseudoanulata in the context of the tritrophic system were studied in the laboratory. The results show that N. lugens feeding onâ…¡YKF8 rice had significantly higher adult weights and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities than those feeding on control rice. However, the parameters of nymphal duration, survival rate, emergence proportion, female ratio, brachypterous proportion, host preference, oviposition choice and fluctuating asymmetry, and the activities of catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), acid phosphatase (ACP), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), acetylcholinesterase (AchE) and glutathione s-transferase (GST) were not different. Female L. Pseudoanulata feeding on N. lugens that lived onâ…¡YKF8 rice had significantly greater cephalothorax lengths than those feeding on N. lugens that lived on control rice. However, no significant differences were found for the parameters of nymphal duration, adult fresh weight, abdominal length, head-to-thorax ratio, female ratio, survival rate and fluctuating asymmetry, and the activities of SOD, CAT, POD, ACP, ALP, AchE and GST.In conclusion, our results indicate that the transgenic insect-resistant rice (â…¡YKF8) tested generally did not adversely affect nontarget herbivores (planthoppers) directly, and it also did not adversely affect nontarget predators (spiders) indirectly through the food chain.