Establishment And Trial Application Of A Database Of Arthropods In Chinese Main Crops Fields

Before a transgenic crop can be cultivated,the ecological risks to the environment must be assessed.This includes the evaluat ion of potential adverse effects on valued nontarget arthropods(NTAs)and the ecosystem services they provide.This NTA risk assessment requires information about which species live in the receiving environment and which species are most likely exposed to the GM plants in particular insect-resistant GM(IRGM)plants.Furthermore,there are countless arthropods in the field,we can't evaluate every species.Thus,appropriate representative species need to be selected.In a systematic lit erature search,relevant publications were ident ified concerning arthropods in Chinese fields planted with rice,cotton,soybean,maize and wheat.Species attributes and abundance data have been stored in Microsoft Access 2010(a SQL-queryable database).We see four areas in which the database can be used to support the ERA for GM plants: 1)Identification of NTAs;2)Identification of test species for laboratory studies;3)Identification of species for higher tier studies;4)Identification of appropriate species for post-market environmental monitoring.This database,which is derived from over 900 publications,provides ecological informat ion for 2520 species and 18375 abundance records from 34 province of China.The database contains information on the species' s latin name,synonym,taxonomy,geographical distribution,abundance,habitat,ecological function,and feeding guild of each species.Collection details(e.g.,sampling method,study duration)are also stored in the database.Arthropods in the database represent 255 families and 25 orders,with Araneae(458 species),Hem iptera(436 species),Coleoptera(417 species)having the highest number of species and records.Species from Araneae,Hymenoptera,Hem iptera,Coleoptera,Lepidoptera and Diptera constitute 93% of all species in the database.Herbivores(1091 species),predators(938 species)and parasitoids(502 species)having most species records.Species of pollinat ion arthropod records are very few,only 28 species in this database from all crops fields.Few data at the species level have been published for decomposition arthropods(soil arthropods),and this database only contains 9 species.Combinat ion with five crops of planting area mapped the arthropod distribut ion in our country,the different distribution of each crop planting condition results in different research of arthropods in each province.Among them,Hunan province has the largest arthropods records,followed by Fujian province,Guangdong province,Guizhou province and Hubei province in the paddy;In the cotton field,Hubei province has largest number of arthropods records,the second is Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,the third is Henan province,followed by Shandong and Anhui provinces;Jilin province has maximum arthropods records,followed by Anhui province,Heilongjiang province,Fujian and Jiangsu province in the soybean field;In the maize field,Shangdong has the most arthropods records,followed by Jilin province,Hubei province,Henan and Heilongjiang province;Henan province has maximum records of arthropods in the wheat field,followed by Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,Hebei province,Shaanxi province,Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang province.The arthropods records of frequency in different provinces and different crops to be primarily associated with plant ing area and the importance of the crops in this area.Using five hypothet ical case studies and two practical case studies,we demonstrate how the database can facilitat e the identif ication of ecologically and agronomically relevant species for the assessment of potential adverse effects of GM crops on non-target arthropods.For each crop,by analys is the data from this database,we have generated lists the most representatives arthropods species in each functional group that might serve as bio-indicators in risk assessment of GM crops.Meanwhile,the fuction of database to identify of threatened or endangered species found in crops field and to monitor arthropods in the field were analyzed.Finally,we suggest ways in which the database can be improved and maintained for future use.