Download Risk Assessment of Transgenic Fluorescent Ornamental Fishes to

Risk Assessment of Transgenic
Fluorescent Ornamental Fishes to the
United States Using FISK v2
Jeffrey E. Hill
Larry L. Lawson
Scott Hardin
Pictures from
Glofish.com
What are Glofish®
 Ornamental fishes that
express a fluorescent
protein
 Protein originally isolated
from jellyfish (Aequorea
victoria) and IndoPacific
sea anemone (Discosoma
sp)
 Microinjection into
embryos at 1- or 2-cell
stage
 Colors highly expressed in
skeletal muscle
Zebra Danio
-Most studied of the
three
-Tropical tolerances
-Native to India,
Bangladesh, and Nepal
-Small bodied
-Diet of small
invertebrates
-Large scale
commercial production
Black Tetra
-Native to Rio Guapore,
Brazil and Bolivia and
Rio Paraguay, Argentina
-Small bodied
-Diet of small
invertebrates
-Large scale
commercial production
Tiger Barb
-Native to Borneo and
Sumatra
-Small bodied
-Diet of small
invertebrates
-Large scale
commercial production
So Who Cares?
Balancing Environmental Safety and Economic Value
Critics
Supporters
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Media
Advocacy groups
Regulatory process
Scientists
Marketing
Sales
Producers
Scientists
???
• “We meddle with this at our peril.”
• “I don’t think we know enough to say they are
safe”
• “There is no way of predicting any species fitness
in the absence of environmental settings,
because species do not behave as predicted by
models”
• “We think the feds should step in whether or not
[GloFish] pose a threat.”
• “It shows the big holes in our regulatory
system…”
Current Regulatory Status
• Multiple risk evaluations completed
– Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 2003
– California Department of Fish and Game (2003)
– Florida Department of Food and Agriculture
Services (2004)
• Concluded that fluorescent red zebra danios
presented little to no risk to the United States
• FDA reported no increased risk to
environment or public health
Fish Invasiveness Scoring Kit v2
• FISK: 49 questions in total
(each with guidance notes)
– 13 Qs Biogeography/History
• Domestication/cultivation (3)
• Climate and distribution (5)
• Invasive elsewhere (5)
– 36 Qs Biology and ecology
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•
•
•
Undesirable traits (12)
Feeding guild (4)
Reproduction (7)
Dispersal (8)
Persistence (5)
FISK Scoring and Product
• Question scoring
– Each response assigned
a numerical value
– Some questions are
weighted
• Total score
– Sum of response values
– Range (-11 to 54)
depending on responses
– determines risk category
Why Use FISK
• Recently updated and evaluated for use in
peninsular Florida
• Identifies potentially invasive species in a
timely and cost-effective manner
• First use of FISK on a transgenic animal
• Transparent, peer reviewed, internationally
vetted, published
• Two Assessors with 1 expert reviewer
Zebra Danio
Score
Black Tetra
Tiger Barb
-0.5 (-1/0)
-3.5 (-6/-1)
-2.5 (-3/-2)
Risk Category
Low
Low
Low
Biogeography/Historical
0/-1
0/2
2/1
1. Domestication/cultivation
0/0
0/0
0/0
2. Climate and distribution
2/1
2/2
1/0
3. Invasive elsewhere
-2/-2
-2/0
1/1
Biology/Ecology
-1/1
-6/-3
-5/-3
4. Undesirable traits
1/2
0/2
1/2
5. Feeding guild
0/0
0/0
0/0
6. Reproduction
2/2
0/0
0/0
7. Dispersal mechanisms
-1/-1
-1/-1
-1/-1
8. Tolerance attributes
-3/-2
-5/-4
-5/-4
Zebra Danio
100
80
60
40
20
0
VU
MU
100
VC
MC
VC
Black Tetra
80
% Responses
MC
60
40
20
0
VU
MU
100
Tiger Barb
80
60
40
20
0
VU
MU
MC
VC
Conclusions
• Low risk of invasiveness for the United States
• No evident risk of gene transmission or
hybridization with native species
• Limited ability to even establish in U.S.
• Risk from the transgenic varieties are not
different than the wild-types.
Conclusions Cont.
• In most cases, transgene reduced fitness
– Reduced fecundity (Gong et al. 2003; Jiang et al.
2011
– Reduced thermal tolerances (Cortemeglia and
Beitinger 2005)
– Increased predation vulnerability (Hill et al. 2011)
• FISK not picking up on reduced fitness
attributes
Issues
• Climate matching different for the 3 fishes
• Invasion History
• Assessor variability
– Interpretations of questions and data quality
– Overall, agreement and certainty was high
Benefits
• Results indicate little need for further
investment into risk mitigation
• Identified few data gaps, important
uncertainty areas
• Low-cost timely information to managers
• Expert reviewer identified issues