Abstract
Genetic pest management (GPM) methods involve releasing modified versions of a pest species to mate with wild pests in the target area. Proposed for a wide range of applications in public health, agriculture and conservation, most progress has been made with pest insects. Offspring of the released modified insects and wild pests carry the modification—which might be transgenes, artificially introduced Wolbachia or genetic damage from radiation, for example—but they also carry a complete haploid genome from their laboratory-reared parent, as well as one from their wild parent. Unless these F 1 hybrids are completely unable to reproduce, further mating will lead to introgression of DNA sequences from the release strain into the wild population. We discuss issues around strain selection and the potential consequences of such introgression. We conclude that such introgression is probably harmless in almost all circumstances, and could, in theory, provide specific additional benefits to the release programme. We outline population monitoring approaches that could be used, going forward, to determine how background genetics may affect GPM. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Novel control strategies for mosquito-borne diseases’.
Highlights
Pest insects do enormous damage to human health and to agriculture
Genetic pest management (GPM) strategies aim to harness the natural mating systems of the pest in order to introduce into the pest population, traits that will sterilize, kill or otherwise modify the population
This could be unrelated to the gene drive or genetic control trait and would mean that desirable alleles would enter the wild population with the potential for that population to correspondingly become somewhat more benign, though as previously discussed such effects may be highly localized and transient
Summary
Pest insects do enormous damage to human health (through the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever and malaria) and to agriculture (through damage to crops or livestock) Control methods, such as the use of insecticidal chemicals, are highly successful. The control agent is a version of the pest itself, laboratory-reared individuals with a heritable modification that desirably alters its properties are released into the wild Such GPM has been proposed for a wide range of pest species, with a significant focus on insects, mosquitoes [1]. While much attention has focused on the novel genetic trait, the background genotype in which it is developed will contribute significantly to the performance of the released modified insects, for example, in terms of mating success. With the rapid development of a variety of novel strategies, with varying propensities for gene flow, selection of background genotype should, be a significant decision for a developer, and correspondingly perhaps for regulators and other stakeholders
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