The Debate on Biodiversity and Biotechnology
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The Debate on Biodiversity and Biotechnology Klaus Ammann, [email protected] Version from 14. December 2016, 461 full text references, 112 pp. ASK-FORCE contribution No. 11 Nearly 400 new references on biodiversity and Agriculture need to be screened and selected. Contents: 1. Summary ........................................................................................................................................................................... 3 2. The needs for biodiversity – the general case ................................................................................................................ 3 3. Relationship between biodiversity and ecological parameters ..................................................................................... 5 4. A new concept of sustainability ....................................................................................................................................... 7 4.1. Revisiting the original Brundtland definition of sustainable development .............................................................................................................. 7 4.2. Redefining Sustainability for Agriculture and Technology, see fig. 1 ........................................................................................................................ 8 5. The Issue: unnecessary stigmatization of GMOs .......................................................................................................... 12 6. Types of Biodiversity ....................................................................................................................................................... 14 6.1 Toward a general theory of biodiversity ................................................................................................................................................................... 14 6.2. Genetic diversity and dynamics ................................................................................................................................................................................ 14 6.3. Species diversity......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 6.4. Ecosystem diversity ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 7. Biodiversity Distribution ................................................................................................................................................. 17 7.1. Global Biodiversity Distribution ................................................................................................................................................................................ 17 7.2. On Centers of Biodiversity and Centers of Crop diversity ....................................................................................................................................... 18 8. Loss of Biodiversity in general ........................................................................................................................................ 23 8.1. Species loss will increase, its impact ......................................................................................................................................................................... 23 8.2. Agriculture as the major factor of biodiversity loss ................................................................................................................................................. 29 8.3. Adaptation and other factors compensate for species loss .................................................................................................................................... 33 9. Crop Biodiversity reduced or not? It depends on how you interpret or manipulate the statistics ........................... 35 10. Biodiversity within GM crop fields enhanced: Non-target insects are better off. .................................................... 40 11. Farm Practices and its Influence on Biodiversity: a mixed Bag .................................................................................. 41 2 11.1. Nature’s fields: ancient wild crop relatives grew often in monodominant stands .............................................................................................. 42 11.2. About extreme Dynamics of Agro-Systems ........................................................................................................................................................... 43 11.3. The Influence of Agriculture on surrounding Biodiversity..................................................................................................................................... 43 12. Introduced and invasive species, a potential threat to biodiversity .......................................................................... 52 13. Biodiversity as a ‘biological insurance’ against ecosystem disturbance .................................................................... 52 14. Agrobiodiversity and the food web of insects show extreme population dynamics ............................................... 55 15. The case of organic farming, influence on biodiversity and yield comparisons ....................................................... 56 16. Selected proposals for improving high technology agriculture related to biodiversity ........................................... 63 16.1. Biodiversity and the management of agricultural landscapes .............................................................................................................................. 63 16.2. More biodiversity through mixed cropping ........................................................................................................................................................... 64 16.3. On the wish list: more crop diversity, foster orphan crop species. ....................................................................................................................... 65 16.4. Varietal mixture of genes and seeds ...................................................................................................................................................................... 65 16.5. More biodiversity in the food web including non-target insects by reducing pesticide use with transgenic crops and other strategies ........ 65 16.6. Questions about biodiversity and developing countries ....................................................................................................................................... 66 16.7. Proposals adapted to Innovation of Agriculture in Developing Countries. .......................................................................................................... 67 16.8. Improvement of conventional breeding ................................................................................................................................................................ 68 16.9. New ways of using biotechnology for enhancing natural resistance of crops ..................................................................................................... 68 16.10. Final remarks on the improvement list related to biodiversity .......................................................................................................................... 69 17. Case studies on the impact of transgenic crops on biodiversity and health ............................................................. 70 17.1. The case of herbicide tolerant crops, Application of Conservation Tillage easier with herbicide tolerant crops .............................................. 70 17.2. The Case of Impact of Bt maize on non-target organisms .................................................................................................................................... 72 17.3. Biodiversity data in GM crops other than Bt resistance and Herbicide tolerance ............................................................................................... 77 17.4. Bt-corn has less cancer causing mycotoxins than conventional corn ................................................................................................................... 78 18. Some closing words: ..................................................................................................................................................... 80 20 Cited Literature .............................................................................................................................................................. 81 3 1. Summary The need for biodiversity on all levels is made clear (2): Biodiversity provides a source of significant economic, aesthetic, health and cultural benefits (3.). Relationships between biodiversity and ecosystems is given in a table (3.1.) and a new concept of sustainability with more emphasis on development and progress is given (3.2.) Types of biodiversity are often used without clear definition: genetic biodiversity - species diversity and ecosystem diversity are all part of biodiversity (4.). A short chapter on unnecessary stigmatization of GMOs (5). Types of biodiversity, an overview (6) and distribution of biodiversity (7). The loss of biodiversity has many reasons (8): In chapter 9 crop biodiversity gets a closer look: the genome