The Planned Introduction of Genetically Engineered Organisms: Ecological Considerations and Recommendations

Abstract

The ecological and evolutionary aspects of planned introductions of transgenic organisms into the environment are considered in this report. The authors support the timely development of environmentally sound products, such as improved agricultural varieties, fertilizers, pest control agents, and microorganisms for waste treatment, through the use of advanced biotechnology within the context of a scientifically based regulatory policy that encourages innovation without compromising sound environmental management. Economic, social, and ethical concerns also must be weighed along with strictly ecological and evolutionary considerations, but these other issues are beyond the scope of this report. Ecological oversight of planned introductions should be directed at promoting effectiveness while guarding against potential problems. The diversity of organisms that will be modified, functions that will be engineered, and environments that will receive altered organisms makes ecological risk evaluation complex. While we cannot now recommend the complete exemption of specific organisms or traits from regulatory oversight, we support and will continue to assist in the development of methods for scaling the level of oversight needed for individual cases according to objective, scientific criteria, with a goal of minimizing unnecessary regulatory burdens. In this report, we provide a preliminary set of specific criteria for the scaling of regulatory oversight. Genetically engineered organisms should be evaluated and regulated according to their biological properties (phenotypes), rather than according to the genetic techniques used to produce them. Nonetheless, because many novel combinations of properties can be achieved only by molecular and cellular techniques, products of these techniques may often be subjected to greater scrutiny than the products of traditional techniques. Although the capability to produce precise genetic alterations increases confidence that unintended changes in the genome have not occurred, precise genetic characterization does not ensure that all ecologically important aspects of the phenotype can be predicted for the environments into which an organism will be introduced. Many important scientific issues must be considered in evaluating the potential ecological consequences of the planned introduction of genetically engineered organisms into the environment. These include survival and reproduction of the introduced organism, interactions with other organisms in the environment, and effects of the introduced organism on ecosystem function. We encourage the use of small—scale field tests , when justified by previous laboratory and/or greenhouse studies, under conditions that minimize dispersal and under appropriate regulatory oversight. As the biotechnology industry develops, continuing regulatory oversight as well as long—term research and monitoring will be necessary for responsible risk management. Many engineered organisms will probably be less fit than the parent organism, although some importan...

Assessment of risk of insect-resistant transgenic crops to nontarget arthropods

“…The information that is considered during problem formulation takes many forms, including published scientific literature, expert opinion, stakeholder deliberations and data developed by the registrants and submitted to the regulatory authority as part of the registration dossier. This information establishes the level of 'familiarity' (that is, the similarities in ecologically relevant characteristics) between the IRGM crop and nontransformed crop [15][16][17] and, together with the related concept for food of 'substantial equivalence' , serves as a starting point to focus the ERA process on potential stressors of concern 18,19 . If substantial equivalence and familiarity are established, the ERA can proceed with emphasis on narrowly defined, stressor-mediated effects that arise from the expressed trait in the IRGM crop (e.g., a Bt protein) 14,20 .…”

“…In all cases, descriptions of plant characteristics, which are made with reference to plants that are generally regarded as environmentally 'acceptable' , are used to identify meaningful differences that may need to be addressed in the risk assessment. 2,8,15,16,18 . A 'meaningful difference' , in this context, refers to a substance or another attribute previously associated with effects that may be of environmental concern (e.g., an unintended increase in alkaloid levels in GM cotton plants modified to express a Cry protein could affect NTAs).…”

Tracing field hybridization in Ryegrass species using microsatellite and morphological markers

“…In terms of the broader GMO biosafety research effort, these results provide further evidence that field assessment of gene flow patterns within and between wind-pollinated species need not require the deployment of GM varieties for the measurement of actual gene flow patterns. Kubik et al, 1999. While the results presented here relate to a gene-flow proof of concept study only, and we firmly believe that all GM crop risk assessment should ultimately focus on the ecological impact of a novel trait rather than the breeding technology that facilitated it Tiedje et al, 1989), there is an underlying need for this kind of research that perhaps has been overlooked by McHughen (2006). The use of pre-existing non-GM cultivars in gene-flow studies allows us to estimate parameters for the various components that make up broader composite gene flow models such as GENESYS (Colbach et al, 2001) and the Gene Flow Index (GFI) model of Flannery et al (2005).…”

The release of genetically engineered micro‐organisms and viruses into the environment

“…There is a need to ensure that GEMs do not damage the ecosystems to which they are released (Grinsted, 1995), for example, by leaving toxic residues (Vogel & McCarty, 1985) or by changing nutrient cycling (Tiedje et al, 1989 ;see Fig. 1).…”

“…The release of GEMs might have adverse effects on ecosystem processes (for review see Levin & Harwell, 1986) and there are concerns that GEMs will displace species carrying out important functional roles like nitrogen fixation or lignin decomposition (Tiedje et al, 1989). Although the role of biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem processes has long been the subject of debate (e.g.…”