A note on some mathematical models on the effects of Bt-maize exposure

TL;DR

This paper discusses mathematical models estimating the impact of Bt-maize pollen on biodiversity, providing new formulas and probabilistic methods to assess mortality and mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It introduces novel formulas for mortality estimation and a probabilistic approach to determine non-Bt stripe widths for mitigation.

Findings

Derived an exact formula for mortality proportion based on crop edge distance.

Proposed a probabilistic method to compute non-Bt stripe widths.

Established a lower bound on Lepidoptera species sensitivity.

Abstract

Some mathematical models for the estimation of the effects of Cry1Ab and Cry1F Bt-maize exposure in the biodiversity are discussed. Novel results about these models are obtained and described in the note. The exact formula for the proportion of the population that suffers mortality exposed to Cry1Ab pollen, underlining its dependence on the margin from the Bt crop edge, is derived. In addition, regarding Cry1F pollen effects, it is proposed a procedure, using a probabilistic and statistical approach, that computes the width of the non Bt-stripes used as mitigation measures. Finally, it has been derived a lower bound, using probabilistic consideration, on the species sensitivity of Lepidoptera.