Word: losey
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...study published in Nature, Cornell entomologist John Losey and his colleagues reported that pollen from corn made pest-resistant by the addition of bacterial genes could spell trouble for monarchs. In his experiments, Losey scattered pollen from the genetically modified corn onto milkweed--the butterfly's only food during its larval or caterpillar stage--and watched what happened with alarm. Most of the caterpillars that ate these leaves either died or were stunted...
...experiments. "Obviously the work is preliminary and inconclusive," says Monsanto spokesman Randy Krotz, minimizing the possibility that corn pollen could ever be blown far enough to affect monarch habitats. But it was just such a discovery--of pollen-dusted milkweed 200 ft. from the edge of cornfields--that prompted Losey's study in the first place. Says he: "We asked ourselves, 'What would happen if the milkweed would be dusted with Bt [corn pollen]?'" His experiments quickly gave an answer: within four days, 44% of monarch larvae placed on the dusted leaves were dead, while controls survived unscathed...
...Losey is eager to take the experiments into the field, to measure pollen density at various distances from its source so as to determine risk to monarch larvae at each site. Says Losey: "We have to weigh the costs and benefits [of Bt corn], then decide as a society what we want." But that decision may already have been made. The Bt gene is now regularly spliced into potatoes (as protection against the Colorado potato beetle) and cotton (against the boll weevil...