Gene drive organisms represent the latest technology with the potential to address pest-related problems in agriculture, public health, and conservation. Gene drives work by greatly biasing the inheritance of specific traits, thereby facilitating their spread in sexually reproducing, wild populations. The proposed applications of gene drives include suppressing populations of crop pests, replacing disease-carrying mosquitos with harmless variants, and eliminating populations of destructive island predators. Assessment approaches exist for evaluating the ecological risks of biocontrol agents, traditional chemical pesticides, and transgenic crops that produce endogenous pesticides. However, gene drive organisms are likely to challenge the applicability and completeness of current approaches.
Results/Conclusions
We find that gene drive organisms have novel attributes with respect to both exposure and effects that will influence the characterization of ecological risk. In particular, we identify three main areas that warrant careful consideration because they fall outside the ecological risk assessment of current pest control products. First, gene drive organisms are designed to work in wild populations over the course of generations. This means various evolutionary and population-level processes will affect the genotypic and phenotypic nature of the product. Second, variation in genotype and phenotype of the product in the environment could result in complex or surprising non-target effects. Third, gene drive organisms are intended to spread spatially and they, or their effects, could exist for durations that approach permanence. This raises the possibility that non-target effects could be spatially extensive and long-lasting. We will highlight areas of ecological research that could help assess risk of gene drive products. Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the official views of the US EPA.