Genetic engineering crop protection

Measurements of behavioral endpoints in honey bees should provide an effective assessment of hazards caused by crop protection chemicals especially when applied to melliferous plants. Under laboratory conditions, the conditioned proboscis extension (CPE) assay provides detectable sub-lethal effects due to pesticides, and also to gene products potentially used in plant genetic engineering (see other chapters of this book). Impairment in olfactory learning abilities have been shown for chemical concentrations at which no additional mortality occurred. Thus, the use of the CPE assay as a method to evaluate the potential effect on the honey bees foraging behavior can help to assess the toxicity of chemicals in a more comprehensive way than by considering the mortality endpoint alone. The CPE procedure can be used to compare responses to different chemicals (Table... 

By genetic engineering, a soil bacterium Bacillus thuringienis or BT) has been modified to produce pesticides that are more toxic than natural ones. The modified genes have then been inserted into crop plants to create crops that synthesize their own pesticides. There is Bt corn with a toxin that destroys the European corn borer and other pests, and there is Bt cotton protected against the cotton bollworm and the budworm. 

---