2a 1 geoff squire

innovations to ecosystem services – design or risk assessment?

Geoff Squire Human interventions affect life forms that mediate ecological processes that deliver outputs or ‘services’

Which is the best direction of enquiry?

The case of GM crops

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B

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CECHR Meeting, 11 February 2015

direction of enquiry ES to innovation – ecological design system to innovation

ecosystem services

ecological processes

life forms

innovation to system

innovation to ES – risk assessment

innovation (GM crop and management)

Defra/SG/BBSRC: 1993-2006 geneflow, persistence Defra/SG: UK’s GMHT crops trials 1999-2005 EU SIGMEA: 2003-2007 Europe-wide, impacts and geneflow EU AMIGA: 2012-2015 Risk-benefit, maize and potato

GM herbicide tolerant cropping flow / diffusion of impacts from innovation to services intervention

functional life forms wild relatives ferals

crop variety

hybridisation & seed dispersal

volunteers

crop plants

primary production: solar energy capture

GMHT pesticide & timing

ecological processes

weeds (broadleaf, grass)

food web inverts

feeding, dispersal, energy exchange

Many transmissions are ‘damped out’ Some are enhanced after temporal and spatial iterations Mostly small impact compared to other effectors

ecosystem services R: invasiveness, disease P: farm profit, output, saleability, product quality

S, R: carbon storage S: trophic functions (pollination, biocontrol)

GM risk-benefit analysis • an alternative approach to (GM) risk assessment – design led • the best comparator?

– an ecologically safe system (which may not exist) – the baseline state – trajectory and dynamics / time and spatial scales

• what is the background change over these time scales • what would an important GM effect be in relation to the background?

• need ecological reference points – safe limits *

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B