Diversity of arthropods in genetically modified br and rr cotton crops in northern Santa

SOSA, M.A; ALMADA, M. S.

St Louis, Missouri, USA

Simposio; The 12 th International Symposium on Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms; 2012

International Society for Biosafety Research

Genetically modified (GM) crops have been widely expanded within the agricultural systems in Argentina. The commercial production of cotton BG / RR was authorized in 2009. The aim of this study was to compare the abundance, richness and diversity of arthropod between genetically modified cotton crops BR and RR. This research work was carried out during three cotton season (2010 until 2012) in the field of Agricultural Experimental Station of INTA Reconquista, Santa Fe (Argentina). A randomized complete block design was used with two GM varieties: NuOpal (BR), lepidoptera and herbicide resistant and G2000 (RR) herbicide resistant with five replications. Arthropods sampling was conducted during season summer, at 30, 60 and 90 days after emergence. Two pitfall traps were placed per plot during 7 days to survey soil stratum and two samples with G-Vac (garden-Vacuum) were used to survey aerial plant. Abundance (Ab), diversity indexes (Shannon H) and richness (r) were estimated using the PAST program. Data was tested by ANOVA and average were compared by Tukey test (á <= 0.05) using InfoStat/P software. A total of 31396 arthropods were captured (pitfall=18382 and G-Vac= 13014). There was not found differences for Ab, r and H indexes between BR and RR for each sampling technics. The only difference found was for H index in pitfall traps among season bein H 2011 (2.0) bigger than 2010 (1.5) (á <= 0.05). According to the results obtained in three cotton season, the abundance, diversity and richness of arthropods present in the crop were not be affected by using varieties with two events ( lepidopteran and herbicides resistant) compared with varieties with only one event (herbicide resistant).