Distribuição espacial de insetos em algodoeiro Bt e não-Bt

Abstract

Among the several options for controlling Alabama argillacea (Hübner) and Heliothis virescens (Fabricius) larvae on the cotton crop, as insecticides spraying and biological control, the transgenic Bt-cotton has been inserted as an extremely viable alternative, however it is not known with accuracy as the transgenic plants affect the populations of organisms that correlate with each other in an agroecossistem. In that sense, the knowledge of the possible alterations in the spatial disposition of the pests or beneficial insects it is extremely important, because it can alter the sampling method for those species on the crop, besides its control method. This study was carried out aiming to determine the spatial distribution pattern of A. argillacea and H. virescens eggs on cotton crop, cultivars DeltaOpal® (conventional) and DP90B® (Bt-cotton). The data were collected during the agricultural year 2006/2007 in two different areas of 5,000 m2 each one in Dourados region. In each sampling area, composed for 100 plots of 50m2 each one, 15 evaluations were accomplished through the countings of eggs from these pests in two plants per plot. The aggregation indexes (variance/mean rate, Morisita’ index, and Exponent k of the Negative Binomial Distribution) and the qui-square test with the adjustment of the found and expected values to the frequencies theoretical distributions (Poisson, Negative Binomial, and Positive Binomial) revealed that in the both cultivars the spatial distribution of egss from those species are distributed in agreement to the aggregated spatial distribution model, being adjusted to the pattern of the negative binomial distribution.