Working Group meeting "Estimating and Managing Gene Flow and Dispersal in GM Crops"
The debate around the use of GM plants in agriculture has been very active among European citizens during the recent years. Some real progress was made concerning the study of gene dispersal through pollen and seeds. In the early nineties, the goal was to find a “minimal distance” over which no gene exchange was possible. It then became apparent that total isolation was not feasible and that the real issue was whether dispersal could be minimised by isolation. This raised the question, what is the relationship between the distance from a source and the quantity of propagules received from this source and what other measures can be taken to restrict gene flow or dispersal.
The possible solutions to restrict the dispersal of transgenes are (i) biological (e.g. reproductive sterility, male sterility, incompatibility, non-synchrony of flowering, plastid transformation (mitochondria, chloroplast etc), restriction of GM DNA to non reproductive organs, Chimeric DNA, terminator systems, barstar/barnase systems, cytoplasmic incompatibility/species barriers, barriers to gene introgression, apomixis, cleistogamy) (ii) physical (pollen barriers, trap crops, physical isolation) and (iii) legislative (seed certification, seed production, zoning, trade embargoes, threshold levels, labelling). The choice of the best solutions will depend on the answers to the following questions: How much “contamination” can we tolerate? Which method is the most effective to reach the goals that have been fixed? Are the solutions different for food safety or for environment safety? What are the reasonable regulations that can be proposed?
This workshop aims to focus on the physical solutions to restrict gene flow and improve the purities of harvests, leaving the discussions on biological and legislative solutions to future other workshops. A series of case studies concerning essentially Maize, Rapeseed and Beets will be developed. In each case, the reason(s) why the gene dispersal has to be quantified and/or controlled will be discussed and related to the available estimates of gene dispersal and the possible solutions, when needed, to reduce it. Both the case-by-case approaches (solutions for each crop/transgene/environment combination) and the global approaches (simultaneous solutions for the management of numerous transgenes in numerous crop species at a large spatial scale) are expected to be discussed. A large emphasis will be given to the modelling approaches keeping in mind that models need to be fitted to data and/or validated a posteriori.
Dates and location
The meeting will be organised by the Universities of Lille and Paris-Sud and will take place at the Novotel in the centre of Lille on 2-3 July 2002.
Topics debated
A first introductory session will make the point on the different levels of isolation that will possibly be required depending on the environmental and/or agronomical goals in a case-by-case point of view (topic of several previous ESF workshops). The subjects to be debated subsequently will be:
- What are the actual methodologies to estimate dispersal functions and levels of cross-pollination? What are the results provided by these methodologies in the recent experimental studies for the most studied species (maize, rapeseed, beet…)? This session can be the place to make the point on the actual purities of productions obtained with the present isolation rules.
- According to these results on dispersal, what are the models and predictions of cross-pollination at the intra-field level? This question includes the problems of managing the seed-bank and the volunteers.
- Are the models able to predict the field-to-field outcrossing, in particular for fields separated by another crop, a gap, or a barrier? What are then the most efficient rules to restrict gene flow at this scale ?
- Are we able to extrapolate the small-scale results into landscape models in order to predict gene flow between several fields of a given crop species in a given production area? Can these models be useful for reducing gene flow by managing the spatial distribution of varieties on a landscape?
- How important are feral and wild populations as sources and reservoirs of genetic contamination of fields? Are models able to understand this phenomenon and do they provide rules of management of non-cultivated areas?
Participation
The meeting will be by invitation only and the details of presentations and discussions will not be reported outside the meeting. A report of the main features of each session and the principle conclusions of the meeting will be published and widely circulated. It is not anticipated that authors will submit full papers, but the report will contain abstracts/summaries of the presented papers.
Participation is invited from scientists active in relevant areas of research or study, and priority will be given to those coming from countries supporting the ESF-AIGM programme. Financial support will be given to cover travel and attendance costs at the discretion of the organisers. Applications should include information on your relevant research activities, your contribution to the workshop (abstract of paper) and financial assistance required. (APEX fares only will be reimbursed). Applications of other than the already invited participants will be granted only exceptionally and on the basis of their scientific contribution. The applications should be made through the support of an AIGM Steering Committee member directly to the Organiser by 1 June 2002.
Organisers
WORKING GROUP COORDINATORS
- Pierre-HenriGouyonE-Mail
- Université Paris 11Laboratoire Ecologique, Systématique et EvolutionOrsayFrance
Fax: +33 (0)1 69 15 73 53
- JoelCuguenE-Mail
- CNRSUniversité des Sciences et Technologies de Lille 1UMR 8016Laboratoire de Génétique et Evolution des Populations VégétalesVilleneuve d'AscqFrance
Fax: +33 (3) 20 43 69 79
- EtienneKleinE-Mail
- Université de Paris IXCentre d'OrsayLaboratoire Ecologie Systématique et EvolutionOrsayFrance
- ClaireLavigneE-Mail
- CNRS UPRESA 8079Université de Paris-SudLaboratoire Ecologie, Systématique et EvolutionOrsayFrance
- JaneLecomteE-Mail
- Université de Paris SudLaboratoire Ecologie et EvolutionUPRESA 8079OrsayFrance
