Surrogate species selection for assessing potential adverse environmental impacts of genetically engineered insect-resistant plants on non-target organisms
Open accessAbstract
Most regulatory authorities require that developers of genetically engineered insect-resistant (GEIR) crops evaluate the potential for these crops to have adverse impacts on valued non-target organisms (NTOs), i.e., organisms not intended to be controlled by the trait. In many cases, impacts to NTOs are assessed using surrogate species, and it is critical that the data derived from surrogates accurately predict any adverse impacts likely to be observed from the use of the crop in the agricultural context. The key is to select surrogate species that best represent the valued NTOs in the location where the crop is going to be introduced, but this selection process poses numerous challenges for the developers of GE crops who will perform the tests, as well as for the ecologists and regulators who will interpret the test results. These issues were the subject of a conference "Surrogate Species Selection for Assessing Potential Adverse Environmental Impacts of Genetically Engineered Plants on Non-Target Organisms" convened by the Center for Environmental Risk Assessment, ILSI Research Foundation. This report summarizes the proceedings of the conference, including the presentations, discussions and the points of consensus agreed to by the participants.
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Because not all natural enemies potentially at risk can be tested, a representative subset of species (surrogates) is selected for assessment.
“From a practical standpoint, because not all natural enemies potentially at risk can be tested, a representative subset of species (surrogates) is selected for assessment (Carstens et al., 2014;Romeis et al., 2013b;Wach et al., 2016).”
From Genetically engineered crops help support conservation biological control (2019) · cites this paper as Carstens et al., 2014
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- Authors
- Carstens, K., Cayabyab, B., De Schrijver, A., Gadaleta, P. G., Hellmich, R. L., Romeis, J., Storer, N., Valicente, F. H., & Wach, M.
- Affiliations
- Pioneer Hi-Bred (US)
- University of the Philippines Los Baños (PH)
- Agricultural Research Service (US)
- Agroscope (CH)
- Indian Institute of Millets Research (IN)
- International Life Sciences Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wach, Michael
- Venue
- GM Crops & Food
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2013-09-23
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 11-15
- ISSN
- 2164-5698 (ISSN-L)
- 2164-5701
- PMC
- PMC5033195
- OpenAlex
- W2072093076
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 6.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- GM crops & food (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Lincoln (University of Nebraska) (submittedVersion)
- Iowa State University Digital Repository (Iowa State University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Genetically Modified Organisms Research
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Insect Resistance and Genetics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Insect Science › Insect-Plant Interactions and Control
- Keywords
- non-target organisms, environmental risk assessment, Bt crops, ecological impact assessment
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Breeding, Environment, Insecta, Species Specificity, Crops, Agricultural, Plants, Genetically Modified
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