Governance of Genetic Biocontrol Technologies for Invasive Fish Ben
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Governance of genetic biocontrol technologies for invasive fish Ben Gilna, Jennifer Kuzma & Stephanie Showalter Otts Biological Invasions ISSN 1387-3547 Biol Invasions DOI 10.1007/s10530-012-0367-x 1 23 Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be self- archived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your work, please use the accepted author’s version for posting to your own website or your institution’s repository. You may further deposit the accepted author’s version on a funder’s repository at a funder’s request, provided it is not made publicly available until 12 months after publication. 1 23 Author's personal copy Biol Invasions DOI 10.1007/s10530-012-0367-x ORIGINAL PAPER Governance of genetic biocontrol technologies for invasive fish Ben Gilna • Jennifer Kuzma • Stephanie Showalter Otts Received: 26 November 2011 / Accepted: 20 November 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract The modification of living agents for pose real threats to biodiversity, and the long term biological control can be collectively regarded as sustainability of oversight arrangements as they cur- genetic biocontrol (GBC). Applications to invasive rently stand is questionable. Researchers and would- fish are an area of significant work in GBC, employing be users of GBC for invasive fish must proactively a diversity of techniques. Some of these techniques are engage with a variety of stakeholders to improve governed by particular legislation, policy or treaty, governance (in fish and other taxa), which we contend (e.g., transgenesis), while others deliver agents with may include reconfiguration of relevant national similar properties with minimal regulation. Together, governance systems, meaningful stakeholder dialogue this heterogeneity of governance and biology creates a and the creation of a new international treaty dedicated number of challenges for effective use of GBC. In to biological control. some cases, there are gaps and inconsistencies that Keywords Biocontrol Á Sex-skewing Á Autocidal Á Invasive Á Pest Á Governance Á Regulation Á Policy B. Gilna Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia e-mail: [email protected] Introduction B. Gilna GenØk, Norwegian Center for Biosafety, Tromsø, Norway Invasive and unwanted species are increasingly rec- ognized as serious problems of social, economic and B. Gilna biological concern. At the same time, our ability to Estacio´n Biolo´gica de Don˜ana, CSIC, Seville, Spain understand and manipulate organisms at a genetic J. Kuzma (&) level is rapidly expanding. Applications to the control Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of of invasive fish are emerging as an important area of Minnesota, 160 Humphrey Center, 301 19th Ave So., innovation in this regard, as reflected in this special Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA e-mail: [email protected] edition, although applications in other areas, espe- cially insects, are also advancing rapidly. Aside from S. S. Otts the technical challenges involved, genetic approaches National Sea Grant Law Center, University of Mississippi to invasive species control are creating new challenges School of Law, Kinard Hall, Wing E, Room 256, University, MS 38677, USA for regulation and oversight. Developments in one e-mail: [email protected] taxon in one jurisdiction likely will have implications 123 Author's personal copy B. Gilna et al. for work on other taxa elsewhere. To analyze this approaches (see below and Nielsen 2003 for further challenge and its implications for work on invasive discussion of conceptual scheme). fish, we define a new category of biotechnological GBC may well offer a powerful and attractive set of endeavor that applies to all taxa, genetic biocontrol management tools to deal with invasive species but, (GBC), and use it to explore the wide array of legal and just as with invasive species themselves, its potentially policy instruments applicable to its oversight. far-reaching effects on ecosystems and societies GBC involves the rational and intentional manip- demand oversight that has been slow in coming ulation of a biological agent at a genetic level in order (Angulo and Gilna 2008b; Henderson and Murphy to improve its characteristics for the control of 2007). GBC follows the trend of many new techno- unwanted or invasive species. GBC is applied but logical fields in creating a new ‘‘space’’ for gover- not restricted to the classical model of biological nance (Jasanoff 2005; Kuzma et al. 2009; Kuzma and control, in which an unmodified predator, parasite or Tanji 2010; Wiener 2007). GBC traverses several pathogen is sought to reduce target populations. established conceptual boundaries, jurisdictions and However, GBC draws on a palette of techniques to legal frameworks, exacerbates existing regulatory modify the biological agent, including the invasive gaps and perhaps creates new ones, creating an uneven organism itself. GBC opens up a variety of opportu- and confusing network. Different jurisdictions may nities to intervene in processes of reproduction as well take very different views of the nature, value and risks as disease and predation (i.e., a modified pest becomes of the species and technologies involved, and yet a biocontrol agent against its unmodified brethren), biology rarely conforms to culturally-imposed geo- enabling a diversity of strategies to control unwanted graphic boundaries. Regulations developed with one populations. GBC already has been controversially taxon in mind may in practice apply equally to field tested for mosquito control (Benedict et al. 2011; other organisms in unanticipated ways—oversight Enserink 2010; Harris et al. 2011; Ostera and Gostin developed for genetically engineered insects, for 2011), and several projects in a variety of species have example, may apply to engineered fish. Oversight been underway for some years (Angulo and Gilna for GBC is therefore diffuse, complex, and context- 2008b). dependent. GBC is not limited to genetically engineered In this article, we first examine a range of oversight agents. It can include chromosomal manipulations arrangements that are pertinent to GBC with particular (e.g., Trojan Y; Cotton and Wedekind 2007; Gutierrez reference to applications in fish (inclusive of other and Teem 2006) and sterility by triploidy (Zajicek marine and aquatic organisms). We then identify major et al. 2011) or selection (Henry et al. 2010; Lozier et al. challenges emerging from these arrangements. We 2008). In this volume (Thresher et al. in review), the suggest ways in which GBC governance systems—and technological options for GBC are reviewed. Kapu- the GBC community—can be better prepared to deal scinski and Patronski (2005) also describe and review with the array of applications and complexity from GBC approaches for invasive fish. Broadly, GBC national and international perspectives. includes any rational modification of the agent in a heritable manner or that exploits our genetic under- standing of heritability in order to halt reproduction or Regimes of governance, oversight and regulation drive the unwanted population down in other ways: for example, autocidal strategies by genetic engineering Governance, oversight and regulation are analytical (Fryxell and Miller 1995; Gong et al. 2005), mutant terms that refer to hierarchically distinct, interoperat- lines (Robinson 2002) or hybridity (Cassani and Caton ing phenomena in society that shape and structure its 1986; Zajicek et al. 2011). Genetic engineering can processes. ‘‘Governance’’ refers most broadly to these include transgenic (recombination across species dynamics, while ‘‘oversight’’ is activities that entail barriers), cisgenic (across closely related species) or supervision and watchfulness, and ‘‘regulation’’ the intragenic approaches (engineering of host-only specific formally encoded rules and institutions that sequences) such as daughterless carp (Thresher are used with governmental authority (Kuzma 2006). 2007; Thresher and Kuris 2004). In some jurisdictions, The variety of these elements that apply to GBC across there are distinctions of legal importance among these the globe may be as numerous and diverse as their 123 Author's personal copy Governance of genetic biocontrol technologies biological particulars. A global perspective is impor- Convention on biological diversity tant—like many of the invasive species at which they are targeted, GBC agents are mobile and sometimes The Convention on Biodiversity1 (1993; CBD or designed to establish reproducing populations. In Convention) is the overarching international treaty practice, it is often local government that undertakes pertaining to issues of ecology and biodiversity. It management actions. Like the invasive species them- aims to provide an influential platform of governance selves, GBC thus evokes a daunting range of gover- for the global challenges and tensions between the use, nance, from local to global. benefits and conservation of biodiversity. Article The technology and the target species of a GBC 8(h) explicitly instructs Parties to ‘‘[p]revent the program might be regarded very differently from one introduction of, control or eradicate alien species location to the next, with implications not only for risk which threaten ecosystems, habitats or species’’, but assessment and management of a program, but also the considers genetically modified