crops: Predicting effects of escaped transgenes\non the fitness of wild plants and their herbivores
Bibliographic record
Abstract
\n \nOne prominent concern about genetically modified crops is the possibility of environmental impacts from the \nmovement of fitness-enhancing traits to wild plant populations. Decisions to deregulate Bt crops in the USA \nhave relied strongly on arguments that these crops will not interbreed with wild relatives in the permitted \ngrowing regions. Limited attention therefore has been directed to analyses of the consequences of gene flow. \nTo provide a transparent evaluation process for risks associated with insecticidal transgene escape, we crafted \na series of questions designed to guide this aspect of the risk assessment. We then explored the current \nknowledge base available for answering such risk-related questions for three Bt crops (cotton, rapeseed, and \nrice). First, we generated a list of wild relatives of these crops. A definitive list of potential transgene recipients \nis not yet possible for some crops. Sufficient data are not available for some crops to eliminate certain related \nplant species from consideration of fertile hybrid formation, thus making lists for these crops subject to \nspeculation. Second, we queried the HOSTS database (UK) to obtain a worldwide listing of lepidopteran species \nthat feed on these crops and their wild relatives, and to determine the host range of the larvae. To our \nknowledge, this list of 502 lepidopteran species is the first such list published for these crops and wild crop \nrelatives. Third, we used a data set maintained by the Canadian Forest Service to assess Bt toxin susceptibility \nfor these lepidopterans. Only 3% of those species have been tested for susceptibility; and the literature \nsuggests that generalizations about susceptibility among taxa are difficult due to the variability within families. \nFourth, we consulted the literature to interpret what is known about the ability of lepidopterans to regulate plant \nfitness or invasiveness. We could not eliminate the possibility of ecological release due to plant resistance \nagainst lepidopterans. In fact, there is strong experimental evidence that lepidopteran herbivores do limit the \ndistribution and/or abundances of at least some wild plant species. Neither could we eliminate the possibility \nthat non-target lepidopterans might have important functions in the ecosystem as pollinators or alternate hosts \nto natural enemies of pest species. This study suggests that crucial data are lacking for the development of a \ncredible scientific basis to confirm or deny environmental risks associated with the escape of Bt transgene \nconstructs to wild relatives. Given the absence of information on the identity, level of susceptibility, and \necological roles of lepidopterans exploiting specific wild relatives of Bt crops, we suggest that new efforts be \ndirected to assessing possible consequences of lepidopteran mortality on resistant wild relatives.\n\n
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".