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Insect resistance to Bt crops: lessons from the first billion acres

Nature Biotechnology volume 31, pages 510–521 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Evolution of resistance in pests can reduce the effectiveness of insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) produced by transgenic crops. We analyzed results of 77 studies from five continents reporting field monitoring data for resistance to Bt crops, empirical evaluation of factors affecting resistance or both. Although most pest populations remained susceptible, reduced efficacy of Bt crops caused by field-evolved resistance has been reported now for some populations of 5 of 13 major pest species examined, compared with resistant populations of only one pest species in 2005. Field outcomes support theoretical predictions that factors delaying resistance include recessive inheritance of resistance, low initial frequency of resistance alleles, abundant refuges of non-Bt host plants and two-toxin Bt crops deployed separately from one-toxin Bt crops. The results imply that proactive evaluation of the inheritance and initial frequency of resistance are useful for predicting the risk of resistance and improving strategies to sustain the effectiveness of Bt crops.

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Figure 1: Planting of Bt crops globally and field-evolved resistance.
Figure 2: Percentage of cotton hectares planted with Bt cotton producing one toxin (gray) or two toxins (black) in four countries.
Figure 3: Resistance of major pest species to Bt crops in 2005 and 2010.
Figure 4: Global status of field-evolved resistance to Bt crops.
Figure 5: Resistance to Bt crops and dose criterion.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Yelich for assistance with figures, and D. Crowder, L. Masson and M. Sisterson for providing comments. This work was supported by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Grant 2008-35302-0390 and USDA Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grant 2011-33522-30729.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Bruce E Tabashnik & Yves Carrière

  2. Centre de coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, UPR 102, Montpellier, France

    Thierry Brévault

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  1. Bruce E Tabashnik
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Correspondence to Bruce E Tabashnik.

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Competing interests

B.E.T. is coauthor of a patent on engineering modified Bt toxins to counter pest resistance, which is related to published research (Nat. Biotechnol. 29, 1128–1131, 2011). Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and Bayer CropScience did not provide funding to support this work, but may be affected financially by publication of this paper and have funded other work by B.E.T.

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Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Tables 1–9 and Supplementary Figure 1 (PDF 695 kb)

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Tabashnik, B., Brévault, T. & Carrière, Y. Insect resistance to Bt crops: lessons from the first billion acres. Nat Biotechnol 31, 510–521 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2597

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