Science may hold key in the battle against wasps
Genetic modification may be the only tool capable of eradicating introduced wasps from New Zealand once and for all.
Royal Society Te Apa¯rangi has opened a debate in the scientific community on ‘‘the social, cultural, legal and economic implications of gene editing in Aotearoa New Zealand’’.
One scenario put forward is the use of gene editing to reduce fertility in introduced wasp populations, namely common and German wasps.
Director of Genetics at University of Otago Peter Dearden said the idea was ‘‘at this stage just an interesting science question,’’ and nothing would come of it without extensive public consultation.
‘‘Public consultation is a big part of it, and rightly so,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t want some idiot in a lab releasing genetically modified wasps without a lot of input and thought into how that might affect things.’’
However, Dearden thought it was crucial to start exploring and researching the possibility.
‘‘If we can prove that it works, then this is maybe the only tech that can fight this pest,’’ he said.
New Zealand, specifically the top of the south, has the highest density of wasps in the world.
On average in New Zealand, there are 40 nests per hectare, and densities have been recorded of over 370 wasps per square meter of tree-trunk.
‘‘When you think of all the beech forest there is in NZ, there’s no way we can trap all of that,’’ Dearden said.
‘‘Releasing GM animals is aways going to take a lot of research and public input.
‘‘But we need to explore this because if we wait 10 years and find out there’s no other effective method, who knows what damage could have been done.’’
A great deal is known about the bacterial DNA and technology involved, with successful transgenic insect populations, like fruit-flies, kept contained in labs. However, Dearden said there was a lot of work to be done before the work could take place in wasps.
‘‘This isn’t a minor task. We need to know if it would be feasible – if we’re talking about releasing a million [transgenic] wasps, that’s probably too much, but if we only need to release 1000, or even 10,000, that’s doable,’’ he said.
As well as feasibility, more research on wasps specifically must be done before genetic modification could be used. The wasp genomes in question have not yet been fully sequenced, and specific genes which influence fertility have not been identified.
Dearden said in many ways wasps were a perfect test for the use of gene editing in conservation efforts. He said that being a specialist in insect genetics made him biased, but in some ways, insects could be simpler to genetically manipulate
‘‘I’m pretty sure I could make a transgenic wasp, if I was asked to, but not a stoat: that would take 10 or even 20 years,’’ he said.
Not only could they be easier to manipulate, insects are also much easier to mass-produce.
‘‘It’s easy to make lots of insects, if you want to release 10,000 wasps, that’s much easier than 10,000 stoats."
Should the idea take off in the Royal Society Te Apa¯rangi panel, Dearden said it could take as little as six months to start the necessary lab-work, but years before any sort of release of genetically modified wasps were to take place.