Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Genetically Modified Organisms

THIRD WORLD NETWORK                               http://www.twnside.org.sg

New Book Release

TWN Biotechnology & Biosafety Series 10
Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Genetically Modified Organisms
By Gábor L Lövei, Thomas Bøhn and Angelika Hilbeck
Publisher: TWN (ISBN: 978-967-5412-13-4)
Year: 2010 No. of pages: 40

ABOUT THE BOOK

This paper considers the potential environmental impact of genetically modified (GM) crops and links this to the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem services, which has been substantially impacted by previous introductions of new technologies. The authors suggest that the concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem services should be the basis of environmental risk/impact assessment. They suggest a transparent, knowledge-based assessment procedure by which important functions and the species or groups that are most significant for this function are identified. This provides one way to develop specific pre-release testing and monitoring systems to assess the environmental impact of GM plants. It also allows for the identification and evaluation of the significance of knowledge gaps, thus making the precautionary approach in risk assessment operational.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DR GÁbor L Lövei is trained as a bird and insect ecologist. He is currently a Senior Scientist in the Department of Integrated Pest Management, Faculty of Agriculture, Arhus University, Denmark. He has been working on GMO biosafety research in New Zealand, Europe, Asia and Africa. His research interests include agricultural ecology, biodiversity in cultivated land, biological control, bird migration and invasion biology.

DR THOMAS bøHN has a PhD in Freshwater Ecology from the University of Tromsø (2002) and is with Genøk-Centre for Biosafety, Norway. His research interests are focused on invasion biology related to biodiversity/ecological interactions, and on the impact of GMOs on experimental model systems and real food-webs. He is studying the food quality and ecotoxicity of GM plants in a feeding model using Daphnia magna, also in combination with chemical stressors (herbicides, pesticides and other chemical pollutants).

DR ANGELIKA HILBECK is a senior researcher at the Institute of Integrative Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. She was trained as an agricultural biologist at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and deepened her knowledge in ecology and entomology during her PhD studies and research at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, USA. Her main research interests are biodiversity and non-target effects of transgenic plants, consequences of transgene flow, risk assessment, post-commercial monitoring and coexistence of transgenic plants.

Contents

1.      INTRODUCTION                                                                 

2.      THE CONCEPT OF BIODIVERSITY (Box 1. Definitions)     

3.      THE FUNCTIONS OF BIODIVERSITY                             

4.       HUMAN DOMINATION OF THE EARTH

       5.       CONCERNS ABOUT BIODIVERSITY

       6.       ECOSYSTEM SERVICES (Box 2. Categories of ecosystem services)

            7.       WHY DO ECOSYSTEM SERVICES HAVE TO BE CONSIDERED IN GM IMPACT ASSESSMENT? (Box 3. Possible environmental impacts of GM crops)

            8.       CURRENT TESTING REGIMES FOR GM PLANTS (Box 4. Spread of GM plants: Control or chaos?)

9.       SELECTION OF TEST ORGANISMS

            10.      REPRESENTATIVENESS OF TEST MATERIALS

11.      A PROPOSED NEW APPROACH FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT TESTING

            12.      CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

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