Contents - Faperta

Transgenic Resistance to Insects: Interactions with Nontarget Organisms 359
impact of N. pyrausta as a regulating factor on European corn borer populations (Pierce,
Solter, and Weinzierl, 2001).
Conclusions
The development and deployment of transgenic plants with insect resistance will continue
to expand in the future. This approach of controlling insects would offer the advantage of
allowing some degree of selection for specifi city effects, so that pests but not the benefi cial
organisms are targeted. The effects of transgenic plants on the activity and abundance of
natural enemies vary across crops and the insect species involved. The adverse effects of
transgenic crops on natural enemies are largely through poor quality of the host or early
mortality of the insect host, rather than through direct toxicity to the natural enemies.
Wherever the transgenic crops have shown adverse effects on natural enemies, these effects
may still be far lower than those of the broad-spectrum pesticides. Deployment of transgenic
plants would also lead to a major reduction in the number of insecticide sprays, resulting
in increased activity of natural enemies and a safer environment in which to live.
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