Abstract
Climate change, as well as a more intensive forestry, is expected to increase the risk of damage by pests and pathogens on trees, which can already be a severe problem in tree plantations. Recent development of biotechnology theoretically allows for resistance enhancement that could help reduce these risks but we still lack a comprehensive understanding of benefits and tradeoffs with pest resistant GM (genetically modified) trees. We synthesized the current knowledge on the effectiveness of GM forest trees with increased resistance to herbivores. There is ample evidence that induction of exogenous Bacillus thuringiensis genes reduce performance of target pests whereas upregulation of endogenous resistance traits e.g., phenolics, generates variable results. Our review identified very few studies estimating the realized benefits in tree growth of GM trees in the field. This is concerning as the realized benefit with insect resistant GM plants seems to be context-dependent and likely manifested only if herbivore pressure is sufficiently high. Future studies of secondary pest species and resistance evolution in pest to GM trees should be prioritized. But most importantly we need more long-term field tests to evaluate the benefits and risks with pest resistant GM trees.
Highlights
There is an urgent need to find alternatives to fossil fuels to reduce our input of CO2 into the atmosphere and mitigate climate change
We ask how effective different types of enhanced resistance are at reducing damage by pests and how well this translates into increased growth and production in GM trees
Significant reduced leaf damage on Bt trees have been found in both lab and greenhouse studies (Harcourt et al, 2000; Hjältén et al, 2012) as well as in field studies (Hu et al, 2001; Axelsson et al, 2012)
Summary
There is an urgent need to find alternatives to fossil fuels to reduce our input of CO2 into the atmosphere and mitigate climate change. Even if GM trees with increased resistance to herbivores have been available for more than 25 years, we still lack knowledge on the efficiency of different modifications for resistance in reducing damage by forest pests and thereby enhancing tree growth. We ask how effective different types of enhanced resistance are at reducing damage by pests and how well this translates into increased growth and production in GM trees.
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