Dear all!
The RSS local highlands group and APERU (Aberdeen Population Ecology
Research Unit) will hold a meeting tomorrow as part of this year's BA
Science
Week (details are given below), see also
http://www.the-ba.net/the-ba/Events/NationalScienceWeek/.
Best Wishes
Claus Mayer (secretary of RSS Highlands Local Group)
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Fourth Joint APERU/RSS Highland Local Group Meeting:
GM-Crop Trials – Design, Analysis & Conclusions
Speakers:
Joe N. Perry (Plant & Invertebrate Ecology Division Rothamsted Research,
Harpenden):
Design of experiments and analysis of data concerning GM crops
Geoff Squire (Scottish Crop Research Institute, Dundee):
Genes and food webs in the GM crop trials
Venue: Zoology Lecture Theatre, Zoology Building, Aberdeen University
(see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/central/vcampus/ for directions)
Time: 4:15 - 6:30 pm on Friday, 10 March 2006
Timetable
4:15: Joe Perry
5:15: tea / coffee
5:30: Geoff Squire
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Abstracts
Joe N. Perry (Plant & Invertebrate Ecology Division Rothamsted Research,
Harpenden)
Design of experiments and analysis of data concerning GM crops:
My research on GM crops has largely involved collaboration on the design
and analysis of the UK Farm Scale Evaluations (FSE) of genetically
modified herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) crops. Results concerning the effects
of herbicide management practices on farmland wildlife for three
spring-sown crops (beet, spring oilseed rape and maize) were published
in autumn 2003 and spring 2004; results from the fourth crop, winter
oilseed rape, were published in Spring 2005. A very brief summary will
be given of the results published to date. Also, two papers will be
described that reassess the analysis, and the estimates made of
statistical power.Work following on from the FSE, and other GM work will
be described. Simple mathematical models can be used to show how the
adverse effects of GMHT systems on the wildlife in sugar beet crops
might be mitigated. Other studies involve mathematical modelling of
relevance to the issue of coexistence between GM crops and organic or
conventional crops. This focuses on issues around the distances proposed
to separate GM and other crops and on spatial and temporal heterogeneity
of crops in landscapes.
Geoff Squire (Scottish Crop Research Institute, Dundee)
Genes and food webs in the GM crop trials:
The results of the UK’s GM crop trials, which began in 2000, are here
interpreted through the annual cycle of energy flow in arable fields.
Growing herbicide tolerant crops altered the balance of solar energy
absorbed by crops and by weeds to a small degree which nevertheless had
important knock-on effects to invertebrate food webs and the persistence
and movement of GM traits. Since the last GM crops were harvested in
2004, research teams have continued to measure the seeds, plants and
genes at and around evaluation sites and to calculate the effects of GM
herbicide-tolerant cropping on the arable ‘species pool’ across the UK.
The findings, summarised in the talk, have lead to hypotheses on the
dynamics of plants and genes, over time and over the landscape, that are
now being tested using non-GM crop varieties. Finally, when compared
with GM field experiments across Europe, the evaluations in the UK are
shown to have several unique features that have greatly increased our
understanding of the farmed habitat.
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Dr Claus-D. Mayer | http://www.bioss.ac.uk
Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland | email: [log in to unmask]
Rowett Research Institute | Telephone: +44 (0) 1224 716652
Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK. | Fax: +44 (0) 1224 715349
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