Infestation of Transgenic Powdery Mildew-Resistant Wheat by Naturally Occurring Insect Herbivores under Different Environmental Conditions

A concern associated with the growing of genetically modified (GM) crops is that they could adversely affect non-target organisms. We assessed the impact of several transgenic powdery mildew-resistant spring wheat lines on insect herbivores. The GM lines carried either the Pm3b gene from hexaploid wheat, which confers race-specific resistance to powdery mildew, or the less specific anti-fungal barley seed chitinase and β-1,3-glucanase. In addition to the non-transformed control lines, several conventional spring wheat varieties and barley and triticale were included for comparison. During two consecutive growing seasons, powdery mildew infection and the abundance of and damage by naturally occurring herbivores were estimated under semi-field conditions in a convertible glasshouse and in the field. Mildew was reduced on the Pm3b-transgenic lines but not on the chitinase/glucanase-expressing lines. Abundance of aphids was negatively correlated with powdery mildew in the convertible glasshouse, with Pm3b wheat plants hosting significantly more aphids than their mildew-susceptible controls. In contrast, aphid densities did not differ between GM plants and their non-transformed controls in the field, probably because of low mildew and aphid pressure at this location. Likewise, the GM wheat lines did not affect the abundance of or damage by the herbivores Oulema melanopus (L.) and Chlorops pumilionis Bjerk. Although a previous study has revealed that some of the GM wheat lines show pleiotropic effects under field conditions, their effect on herbivorous insects appears to be low

Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA

A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm} in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron. The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3, masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

No Adverse Effect of Genetically Modified Antifungal Wheat on Decomposition Dynamics and the Soil Fauna Community – A Field Study

The cultivation of genetically modified (GM) plants has raised several environmental concerns. One of these concerns regards non-target soil fauna organisms, which play an important role in the decomposition of organic matter and hence are largely exposed to GM plant residues. Soil fauna may be directly affected by transgene products or indirectly by pleiotropic effects such as a modified plant metabolism. Thus, ecosystem services and functioning might be affected negatively. In a litterbag experiment in the field we analysed the decomposition process and the soil fauna community involved. Therefore, we used four experimental GM wheat varieties, two with a race-specific antifungal resistance against powdery mildew (Pm3b) and two with an unspecific antifungal resistance based on the expression of chitinase and glucanase. We compared them with two non-GM isolines and six conventional cereal varieties. To elucidate the mechanisms that cause differences in plant decomposition, structural plant components (i.e. C∶N ratio, lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose) were examined and soil properties, temperature and precipitation were monitored. The most frequent taxa extracted from decaying plant material were mites (Cryptostigmata, Gamasina and Uropodina), springtails (Isotomidae), annelids (Enchytraeidae) and Diptera (Cecidomyiidae larvae). Despite a single significant transgenic/month interaction for Cecidomyiidae larvae, which is probably random, we detected no impact of the GM wheat on the soil fauna community. However, soil fauna differences among conventional cereal varieties were more pronounced than between GM and non-GM wheat. While leaf residue decomposition in GM and non-GM wheat was similar, differences among conventional cereals were evident. Furthermore, sampling date and location were found to greatly influence soil fauna community and decomposition processes. The results give no indication of ecologically relevant adverse effects of antifungal GM wheat on the composition and the activity of the soil fauna community

Measurement of isolated photon production in deep-inelastic scattering at HERA

The production of isolated photons in deep-inelastic scattering ep→eγX is measured with the H1 detector at HERA. The measurement is performed in the kinematic range of negative four-momentum transfer squared 450 GeV. The analysis is based on a total integrated luminosity of 227 pb-1. The production cross section of isolated photons with a transverse energy in the range 3<ET γ<10 GeV and pseudorapidity range -1.2<ηγ<1.8 is measured as a function of ET γ, ηγ and Q2. Isolated photon cross sections are also measured for events with no jets or at least one hadronic jet. The measurements are compared with predictions from Monte Carlo generators modelling the photon radiation from the quark and the electron lines, as well as with calculations at leading and next to leading order in the strong coupling. The predictions significantly underestimate the measured cross sections

Does wheat genetically modified for disease resistance affect root-colonizing pseudomonads and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi?

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of genetically modified (GM) wheat with introduced pm3b mildew resistance transgene, on two types of root-colonizing microorganisms, namely pseudomonads and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Our investigations were carried out in field trials over three field seasons and at two locations. Serial dilution in selective King's B medium and microscopy were used to assess the abundance of cultivable pseudomonads and AMF, respectively. We developed a denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) method to characterize the diversity of the pqqC gene, which is involved in Pseudomonas phosphate solubilization. A major result was that in the first field season Pseudomonas abundances and diversity on roots of GM pm3b lines, but also on non-GM sister lines were different from those of the parental lines and conventional wheat cultivars. This indicates a strong effect of the procedures by which these plants were created, as GM and sister lines were generated via tissue cultures and propagated in the greenhouse. Moreover, Pseudomonas population sizes and DGGE profiles varied considerably between individual GM lines with different genomic locations of the pm3b transgene. At individual time points, differences in Pseudomonas and AMF accumulation between GM and control lines were detected, but they were not consistent and much less pronounced than differences detected between young and old plants, different conventional wheat cultivars or at different locations and field seasons. Thus, we conclude that impacts of GM wheat on plant-beneficial root-colonizing microorganisms are minor and not of ecological importance. The cultivation-independent pqqC-DGGE approach proved to be a useful tool for monitoring the dynamics of Pseudomonas populations in a wheat field and even sensitive enough for detecting population responses to altered plant physiology