Dynamic role and importance of surrogate species for assessing potential adverse environmental impacts of genetically engineered insect-resistant plants on non-target organisms
Open accessAbstract
Surrogate species have a long history of use in research and regulatory settings to understand the potentially harmful effects of toxic substances including pesticides. More recently, surrogate species have been used to evaluate the potential effects of proteins contained in genetically engineered insect resistant (GEIR) crops. Species commonly used in GEIR crop testing include beneficial organisms such as honeybees, arthropod predators, and parasitoids. The choice of appropriate surrogates is influenced by scientific factors such as the knowledge of the mode of action and the spectrum of activity as well as societal factors such as protection goals that assign value to certain ecosystem services such as pollination or pest control. The primary reasons for using surrogates include the inability to test all possible organisms, the restrictions on using certain organisms in testing (e.g., rare, threatened, or endangered species), and the ability to achieve greater sensitivity and statistical power by using laboratory testing of certain species. The acceptance of surrogate species data can allow results from one region to be applied or "transported" for use in another region. On the basis of over a decade of using surrogate species to evaluate potential effects of GEIR crops, it appears that the current surrogates have worked well to predict effects of GEIR crops that have been developed (Carstens et al. GM Crops Food 5:1-5, 2014), and it is expected that they should work well to predict effects of future GEIR crops based on similar technologies.
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Because not all natural enemies potentially at risk can be tested, a representative subset of species (surrogates) is selected for assessment.
“From a practical standpoint, because not all natural enemies potentially at risk can be tested, a representative subset of species (surrogates) is selected for assessment (Carstens et al., 2014;Romeis et al., 2013b;Wach et al., 2016).”
From Genetically engineered crops help support conservation biological control (2019) · cites this paper as Wach et al., 2016
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- Authors
- Wach, M., Hellmich, R. L., Layton, R., Romeis, J., & Gadaleta, P. G.
- Affiliations
- International Life Sciences Institute (US)
- Iowa State University (US)
- Pioneer Hi-Bred (US)
- Agroscope (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Wach, Michael
- Venue
- Transgenic Research
- Published
- 2016-02-27
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 499-505
- ISSN
- 0962-8819 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-9368
- PMC
- PMC4925689
- OpenAlex
- W2289588342
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 0.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Transgenic Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Iowa State University Digital Repository (Iowa State University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Genetically Modified Organisms Research
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Insect Resistance and Genetics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Insect Science › Insect-Plant Interactions and Control
- Keywords
- surrogate species, non-target organisms, Bt proteins, Apis mellifera, predatory arthropods, parasitoids, ecosystem services, pollination, pest control, mechanism of action, regulatory risk assessment
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Environment, Insecta, Pesticides, Risk Assessment, Plants, Genetically Modified, Ecotoxicology
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