Indications of Bee Pollination in Sorghum and its Implications in Transgenic Biosafety

摘要

The family Graminae is a large, diverse group that includes some of the world's most important crops such as maize [Zea mays], rice [Oryza saliva L.], wheat [Triticum aestivum L.] and sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench]. These crops are generally considered to be wind pollinated, and transgenic risk assessment studies on gene flow studies have focused on wind-mediated pollen only (Arriola 1995; Arriola and Ellstrand 1996; Song et al. 2003; Song et al. 2004). On some occasions, however, bees have been reported to visit Graminae crops and their wild relatives. On some indigenous grasses in South Africa, honey bees were recorded collecting pollen (Anderson et al. 1983). Solitary bees from the genus Lipotriches (family Halictidae) are known to collectpollen from 21 different grass species including Sorghum bicolor ssp. arundinaceum, the wild progenitor of cultivated sorghum (Immelman and Eardley 2000). Honey bees and bees of the genus Nomia (family Halictidae) (The genus Nomia was later divided intoseveral genera, one of which is Lipotriches) were observed on indigenous grasses in Kenya (Bogdan 1962).