A British biotechnology company called Oxitec has genetically engineered a new breed of olive tree fly that could stop their natural counterparts from ravaging olive trees in Spain.
The altered flies are implanted with a gene that causes female offspring to die in the larval stage. Males will grow old with the gene, and soon won't have anyone to mate with. In a controlled experiment conducted by the UK scientists, according to New Scientist, the population crashed in about 10 weeks.
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Olive tree fly larvae eat through 15% to 30% of the crop each year, making them much more than a nuisance to anyone whose income depends on the fruit.
For now, Oxitec is waiting for the go-ahead from the National Biosafety Commission in Spain. But in Brazil, a similar experiment is well under way in the wild. The scientists have engineered dengue-carrying mosquitoes around the city of Mandacaru to produce offspring that will all die before they can reproduce.
The company claims to have killed off 96% of the dengue mosquito, but there are those who believe their method of doing so is dangerous.
GeneWatch UK, a nonprofit dedicated to investigating how genetic science and technology affects everything from food to society in general, is concerned that this method of species control doesn't have enough oversight. They believe that the relationships this species of mosquito has with other mosquitoes have been oversimplified, meaning the insects could intermingle and cause other populations to deteriorate.
But Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry says that its method is much more practical and safe than, say, using insecticide.
"Insecticides will kill many species — whether the target or a beneficial insect so they can have quite a broad impact in the environment," Parry wrote in an e-mail to Mashable.
He also suggested that his method is better for people, too.
"The mosquito lives and breeds very close to humans — so they live in and around the home," Parry said. "So with pesticides you need frequent and total access to people’s homes to spray or fog." Many people don't want those chemicals near where they live, of course.
Oxitec's main focus for now is on the mosquitoes, but they have developed a few more bugs for different purposes, including one that can control populations of cotton-eaters.
Does controlling populations through genetic tweaking sound safe to you? Let us know in the comments.
Image: Flickr, Reini68