Slashdot Mirror
Australia To Use GM To Control Carp
mskfisher writes "Yahoo! News is running an AFP story on Australia's efforts to control the carp population using a 'male-only' gene. The gene will prevent the carp, considered a pest in Australia, from producing female offspring. The carp has wiped out some 90% of the native south Australian fish population, namely perch and bass. They do not, however, mention any ways of controlling the spread of this gene in the wild, besides the obvious death of any affected population."
Perhaps this is another terrorist plot to take over airliners?
But these guys areobviously nerds...
Isn't that a new SUV?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
At first glance I thought they were going to use General Motors to control carp. I know GM used to be a huge Conglomerate corporation... but sheesh.... (Roger Moore fans, go easy on me please)
"You had this look that of an angel, it was such a bad disguise" --Dishwalla
How about a "female-only" approach? I suggest that we try both approaches at the same time to see which one works best.
Christ, I need to take a break from Slash.
Suppose this gene multiplies further out past Australia, we could very well see the extinction of all Carp once they all become male.
Genetic work can be beneficial, but the long term considerations must be considered, how about mass breeding/releasing of sharks in the water to eat all these carp (I know the human implications of all those sharks terrorizing humans)? Or just increased fishing programs? There's got to be another way....
...in bed
"Australians report rise of homosexual fish"
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
This just doesn't look good.
They do not, however, mention any ways of controlling the spread of this gene in the wild [...]
Oh... I know this one! <jumping up and down>
Just distribute little tiny fish condoms!
From the article:
Carp features prominently in the cuisines of many Asian and eastern European countries...
Does Australia export the carp to Europe and Asia for food? If so, wouldn't the backlash potentially kill their exports for genetically engineered meat? I suppose if they are trying to kill them off, they are considering this anyway, but still...
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
And you thought /.ers had a hard time finding chicks... be glad you're not a carp.
Rank Presidents by th
is another man's delicacy
.sigs are for post^Hers.
"Male only" carp genes could get into the rest of the gene supply. This is why man and fish should not interbreed.
Since all carp that I know of are freshwater fish, it stands to reason by that assumption that the species was introduced by man. In fact the article mentions the word "introduced" but neglects to mention by what means. Had it been by natural cause, the choice of word would commonly be "migration".
As such it would be next to impossible to spread this gene outside of Australia, where the species isn't wanted anyway. So unless I am wrong in my basic assumption that man caused this in the first place, the problem is contained.
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Any chance of crossbreeding the female gene with the magic: the gathering gene? That would be awesome!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Anything which reduces or limits the breeding ability of a species will naturally reduce within the population. It's called evolution. It'll just take a few generations. After all, we can't even kill bloody bacteria now.
How about we just catch and eat the carp?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Bred in tanks, the four centimetre (1.6 inch) gambusia are soon to be released into ponds surrounded by barbed wire, to reduce the risk of the male-only gene spreading to other species.
Barbed wire sounds a little porous if you ask me, unless those genes are a lot bigger in Australia.
Once we are done with carp, I'd vote for mosquitoes, roaches, rats and lawyers next.
Do not look into the laser with remaining eye.
"perch and bass" are not native in Australia. Perches are found in Europe, North America, and northern Asia. Bass are found in North America only.
For a better fish context - see Fishbase.
So, what do I care if one introduced fish species eradicates other introduced.
"It's cultural as much as anything else," said Thresher, who has a doctorate in marine biology. "There is a social stigma associated with carp because they are found in muddy conditions."
- from the article
Sounds familiar: there is a social stigma associated with geeks, and we too are often found in muddy conditions.
Fortunately, there is little need to introduce a male-only gene into geeks -- most of whom are males destined never to propagate their kind.
-kgj
-kgj
Didn't they try this in Jurrasic Park?
"Queer FishEye for the Carp Guy" ...rimshot
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
I grew up next to a small river. As a child, my friends and I spent many afternoons fishing in the river for bass, sunfish, and catfish. In the late 1980s a trend began among irresponsible fishermen of using "feeder" goldfish, most of which were tiny orange carp, as bait because they were cheaper than minnows. At the end of the day, those guys would toss any extra bait into the river, where they thrived and grew to huge sizes. Native fish were wiped out, followed by the huge snapping turtles that could no longer survive in the screwed-up ecosystem. Those damned goldfish became the kudzu of our water, weren't any fun to fish for, and now the only people who fish in those waters are illegal immigrants desperate for food.
If something like this were done with those stupid pet goldfish, it would be a great boon for a lot of fishing spots that might eventually be destroyed by idiots using non-native bait.
We are cruising up one of the side canyons and the only place to exit is surrounded by boats and has no trees. My friend has to take a dump. So he jumps into the lake and drops his bathing suit. As soon as it hits the water, he is immediately attacked by 20-30 Huge carp in a big feeding frenzy. The water was boiling, my friend was screaming and we were crying from laughter.
Won't this just mean that a million sexually frustrated male carp will beat the fish-crap out of all the perch and bass instead?
...will include wave of stylish redecorations of ponds and streams combined with a massive uptick in carp fashion sense.
In general, one would think that introducing a GM freshwater fish in Australia would be a safe bet for containment. However...
There is NO WAY that this gene could be contained in the small "backwater basin" in Australia. There are enough other locales in the world (the majority of the US, and its Great Lakes for one) in which carp are despised, and enough motivated people with mobility, that there would quickly spring up a "black market" in these GM carp for export to ponds, lakes, and rivers abroad.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
...would be to import Gorillas to eat the carp. In the winter, the Gorillas will die off naturally.
the "control" is in the isolation.
carp are freshwater fish, australia is surrounded by sea water. the only way these fish could escape outside of aus. is through ship ballast - and in a part of the world that isn't continually stocked with these GM fish, a few escapees will die out before they can to any damage to other carp stocks around the world.
solution:
just make sure you kill anything living in your ballast water
Playing with genetics is obviously VERY dangerous. The gene could jump from one organism to another... We simply don't know.
But please also remember that the US government and Monsanto have been doing that with corn and soya FOR YEARS.
I don't like this future for agriculture, please take time to do test before...
Iraq: war to save the U
I, for one, welcome our new genetically superior, all-male fishy masters.
--riney
...in the same sentence is turning into a cliche. Australian history is full of failed attempts to correct past mistakes, only to make things worse. I'm surprised they're not engineering these fish to also be amphibian and attack the cane toad and rabbit while they're at it. Visions of the Land Carp anyone? I suggest they just get used to the taste of carp and let them be. I'd take carp over catfish anyday.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
As it has been said "nature has a way"
Hypothetically figure that somebody might want to keep a carp as a pet (I know weird pet) and takes it back to their home in Asia, it escapes and now you have no Carp in Asia...seems kinda farfetched but I've seen weirder....
...in bed
After having GM and Onstar on-the-brain from reading the prior /. story today, I read this title and thought: "What, they're going to implant Onstar on the Carp?!?"
yeah I can't possibly see how that plan can go wrong
Unlike certain other organisms, interspecies gene transfer in fish is not something that happens every day. In weeds, it happens due to bacteria living in the root nodules of the weed and visiting neighboring plants.
I do not know if gene transfer is documented in other organisms like fish but would consider it to have a very low success rate.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Actually some scary possibilities about using GM for human social engineering come to mind. If you were scared of "femi-nazis" before, now you have reason to be really frightened!
He had been attending a peace demonstration (prior to the Gulf War II) and had seen a poster saying: "Draft SUV drivers first!".
I couldn't agree more.
Go Matt!
Spreading to the wild would not be an option as the fish cannot replicate. Only fish that are directly modified would be affected. Word~
Those damn carp would be morphing into males or doing asexual reproduction in no time!
This won't cause the extinction of the species, it will just reduce one generation's progeny by 90%.
Think about it, the GM gene guarantees that the fish won't reproduce. Darwinism kills these fish off after one generation for exactly that reason.
The 10% of viable offspring don't have this gene, so the next generation is completely untainted, and can repopulate the species.
Kevin Fox
Call me stupid...but how do they expect the less capable fish to 'win?'
You don't see many wild populations of seedless grapes.
Just from my basic Mendel table I can't see this reducing the population by any more than 25% at the peak...then it would start recovering. Am I missing something?
Hey, why use complex genetic engineering to control your carp population when you can have a hell of a lot more fun using medieval technology like the NZers do?
It is curious how external species are able to out-compete local species fine-tuned to the local environment time and time again.
One theory is that local preditors have yet to adjust to the new species, giving it freer range. Another is that isolation has kept local species from some of the evolutionary advances going on elsewhere in the world.
Table-ized A.I.
Australia To Use GM To Control Carp
I read that too fast and momentarily thought Australia wasn't going to let lousy American cars be sold there any longer.
I gotta cut down my caffeine intake.
So, when you actually *need* to overfish a certain area and reduce a species population.... we turn to genetic manipulation. Smart. Smart.
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
They should GM the carp so they look different to humans. Maybe put the Glow gene in them. The only problem would be if the change made them less attractive to the opposite sex. Eventually it would, because selection would favor females who can pick males without the gene. It would take a while though.
The trick is not to create something that is "collectable." It'll have to be ugly and taste bad, but still sexy to other fish.
This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
Bass are most definitely found in South America as well. I used to fish for bass down in Venezuela back before all the fun started happening...
I wonder if they tried hereditary sterility? The offspring of the sterile fish would ... never mind.
See what I've been reading.
"Bred in tanks, the four centimetre (1.6 inch) gambusia are soon to be released into ponds surrounded by barbed wire, to reduce the risk of the male-only gene spreading to other species."
OK, I give up. How does a gene spread to other species?
Also, if I am not mistaken the gambusia is the same small fish that eats mosquito larvae and keeps that population down without us having to spray so much insecticide. While experimenting with this in an aquarium in a lab may be OK, it would seem to me careless to do the experiment in the wild at all.
Those two items make me wonder if the author of the article had a clue what they were writing about. But then I have a tendency to not trust journalists of all types.
Okay, so it's more complex because while 0% of the female progeny will have this gene, 90% of the male progeny will. Hmm.. Interesting...
Kevin Fox
First we genetically restrict one of the sexes, then the next thing you know they're humping anyway and they've broken out of their cages and are rampaging around the island trying to eat Dr. Grant and the kids.
A new feature is just a bug waiting to happen. And vice versa.
Don't get your hopes up. This won't work on PHBs because no one has yet solved the problem of 'how could they possibly reproduce?'
Not surprising from the creator of one of the most surreptitiously blasphemious TV-show ever...
There are many pests that might be erradicated this way. I wonder also, for fish in particular, assuming that one male can inseminate many females, could the reverse (female only reproduction) be used to temporarily increase numbers of predator species? Perhaps predators could be introduced into areas where genetic manipulation can not be done directly to the pest species?
African-Americans like Carp.
All female carp caught in Australia have suddenly developed an unusual countenance that closely resembles a smile of extreme satisfaction.
If you post it, they will read.
Honestly, I'm all for Genetic manipulation in controllable settings. Such as re-growing somebody's dying liver.
However a change that could effect a massive population worries be because of the immense variables contained within. Humans do not fully understand the Earth that they live in, and yet we try and alter it. The chain reaction effects from a genetic manipulation could cascade into a problem worse than we had seen in (at least in theory).
...in bed
...how does this gene propagate?
I mean, okay: there are 600 million carp in the water. Scientists engineer a good thousand fish to have this gene. Then they release them into the water. So those thousand fish have male offspring.
Now what? Is this gene dominant? Is it even hereditary? Even if it is, how can the effect be anything better than infinitesimal?
Or are the scientists using some sort of phage to infect ALL of the carp of the ocean? In which case, why not just kill the carp outright instead of all this fancypants gender manipulation?
I don't get it. I'm sure there's an explanation, but the ass-awful article doesn't help.
They used GM to control Crap.
What? Ford and Chrysler don't get to bid?
It's the Halliburton contracts all over again!
Why don't they just catch them and eat them. Carp are really tasty.
It is even more curious that mainland Asian plant species tend to out-compete American local species, while the reverse doesn't happen. The isolation of Australia provides an eco-system obviously ripe for exploitation by introduced species, but its less clear why a plant like kudzu should be so difficult to manage on the American continents.
Want some of our imported walking catfish ? They transport themselves around just fine. I'll even throw in some free non native Fire Ants, oh and you can have your damm paperbark (Melaleuca) trees back.
"perch and bass" are not native in Australia.
I suspect that "perch" and "bass" are colloquial names, not neccesarily scientific terms.
From the article:
Scientists hope to significantly reduce the carp population in the Murray-Darling by mid-century, to allow native species of Macquarie perch and Australian bass to regenerate.
Macquarie perch: native
Australian bass: native
Your +5 comment: Score: -1, Wrong
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Ok, I got a horror movie for you. I can see it now, some apocalyptic cult ports this to humans.
Think about it - if a gene causes the birth of only males, then it is not beneficial to the carp population.
What has Darwin taught us about non-beneficial genes again?
That's right. They eventually drop out of the gene pool.
Basic evolution, everybody.
"Hi guys..."
I wouldn't count on that. A big issue in the San Francisco Bay area has been the phenomenon of foreign tankers emptying their balast chambers (or some kind of huge water-containing chamber) in the SFBay, thereby introducing tons of non-native species to the area.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by carp?
No problem. We simply release wave after wave of sharkes. They'll wipe out the carp.
But aren't the sharks even worse?
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of whale that thrives on shark meat.
But then we're stuck with whales!
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the whales simply freeze to death.
The last thing we need in this world are more men. Who's with me on this?
*cragen
When most of the carp die off, maybe the survivors will be a little more wary of humans and be harder to catch to manipulate their genes. That oughta teach those pesky fishies!
Will these GM carp have optional OnStar? Oh wait, I'm confusing threads...
that's right. this stuff is unbreakable, & wwworks on several (more than 3) dimensions.
.asp on that won?
morons build vessel that floats on any suBStance? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:53PM (#7829639)
you can bet your
creators/humankind converge to repel unprecedented evile? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:51PM (#7829610)
& why not? what other options are there for us?
eyecon0meter: survival most sought after feature? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:48PM (#7829586)
creators' badtoll over corepirate nazi execrable (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:46PM (#7829567)
disposal?
newclear power dissed/cussed? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @02:41PM (#7829536)
newclear powered blips explore corepirate nazi (Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, @07:53AM (#7826913)
cesspool?
pheWWW.
lookout bullow. the daze of the phonIE payper liesense ?pr? ?firm? hypenosys stock markup FraUD softwar gangster execrable, is WANing into coolapps/the abyss, at the increasing speed of right.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... get ready to brighten up?
mynuts won: solar(is) power included?
How can GM control carp? They going to drive a bunch of Chevys into the water?
(It's funny!!)
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
I suppose if journalists only wrote about what they really understood, they'd be limited to nursery rhymes (and the simpler ones at that), but still...
Notably missing from the article is how on earth they planned on wiping carp out with a gene that by definition doesn't confer any evolutionary advantage.
Fine, say they release zillions of GM carp - unless they can somehow ensure that only (*ONLY*) the GM carp get to breed, the result will be the next generation of carp consisting of soem mix of GM and non-GM carp, and that'll be repeated for each subsequent generation - unless one generation has so few GM (or non-GM) carp that only the non-GM (or GM) carp breed.
The key point that is absent from the article is why the scientists believe that the numbers of non-GM carp will ever drop below sustainability.
I'm not a population biologist (I don't even play one on TV), and so I certainly wouldn't go out on a limb and say that it won't happen - but it does seem unlikely. Even if it happened in any one lake or stream, it'd have to happen all over Australia at once to work!
New Zealand tried to wipe out there rabbit population by releasing a REALLY nasty rabbit virus. It spread really well, was quite fatal - was perfect. And as everyone expected, it completely failed to wipe out the rabbit population. Put a big dent in it for a few years, but as the rabbit population dropped, the disease became unable to spread. Meanwhile, the vulnerable rabbits died, and the resistant ones lived. Soon the population was back where it started, only now they were immune.
Why won't the same thing happen in Australia? It would be very surprising if the GM changes didn't make the transgenic carp look/act/smell slightly "different", and once the carp population selects away from breeding with the GM carp, it's all over. Again, there may be some clever trick used to avoid this - what?
Lastly, the talk of the gene spreading beyond carp is even worse. I have serious doubts that this will work on carp - the idea that it might work for other species is absurd. Oh, genes can cross the species barrier (it's rare, but it can happen). But the *one* thing that might make it work for carp is if they introduce a large number of GM carp across all of Australia at once. If it crossed from carp to some other fish species, you'd get one GM trout (or whatever). That's not going to get you anywhere.
My father taught me this when I was little:
1)Clean and wash carp.
2)Tie carp to good quality oak or maple board using fine Stainless leader wire.
(2 carp can be prepared at a time, either side of board)
3)Baste carp constantly, slowly rotating over an open fire (mesquite is good)using a mixture of lemon juice, butter, honey, and a bit of cayenne pepper.
Takes approximatly 4 hours, perhaps longer.
When boards become tender, dicard carp, and eat the board.
You're also the only one who still ... believes the WWF is real.
WWF is real. It's WWE that's fake.
That said, what would WWF say about a gene that could cause carp to go extinct worldwide should it somehow manage to be shipped out of Australia?
Why are Australians always so gung ho about getting rid of feral species
It's a plot using GM to keep us from breeding!
This is no surprise. GM recently used Australia for the basis of their new GTO.
So far the Aussies have done stuff like let Cane toads loose to eat grubs (which they didn't)
;-)
Then they let some birds loose to eat the Cane toads (which they don't because it's toxic to the birds)
They should just hire Burt Gummer to take care of their Carp problem
Just remember: Every problem can be solved with well placed explosives...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Survival of the fishiest!
Did anyone notice that line in the article? If there is a possiblility that the gene transfers to other species, it could eventually "infect" many species of fish in the sea. Hopefully it would die out fast enough that this wouldn't happen. Just think if the goal of killing all Australian carp ended up killing most the fish in the ocean. Sure I might be alarmist here, but I'm not the one who mentioned the possibility of the gene jumping species. I agree that evolution would prevail, but the transient would be umm interesting. Perhaps something like this could be used on the Zebra muscles in the great lakes if it works on Carp.
I mean, it worked in "Jurassic Park," right?
the coolest club on
------ female geek. oh, wait. I'm gay. D`oh!
... d`oh!
That's gonna make it difficult to pass on any "gay genes"
On the other hand, considering all the problems caused by heterosexual males, I gotta say: you go, girl!
-kgj
-kgj
And half of the guys here are fags anyway, so there you go.
....
Mostly the half that strenuously deny it. But check out this post by Naomi the butterfly
-kgj
If the carp control program works in Australia, I would suggest that a lot of people in Hawaii would be happy to see the same solution applied to the tilapia rampant in our streams. Tilapia were brought here from Africa in the 20th century some time for God knows what reason. They have overrun every fresh and brackish waterway in the state. It would be wonderful if we could give the native fish some room to breathe.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who forget the past are doomed
That fact alone throws such a huge
Murphy into your equation that it's almost
fool proof to reach all corners of the globe.
(always loved that expression... ever see a globe
with corners?? LOL)
You have made some excellent points.
Now - we should be able to build a simple model that will predict what will happen.
What I see at a simplistic level is a positive feedback cycle. Suppose we introduce as many GM males as there are non-GM males in the population. In the 1st generation this would imply that 50% of females mate with GM males and 100% of those offspring are now GM males.
The other 50% of females produce a population that is normal. So we have 1/2 of the next generation of females dissapear. and 2/3 of the male population in generation #2 carry the GM gene.
In generation 3 the balence tips further and so on and so on. IE - this model predicts extinction.
----------
Ok - the GM fish can never be uniformly distributed everywhere. Somewhere there will be a pool of carp that does not carry the gene.
As the population in the infected areas die out - their habitate will re-populate with the normal gene mix. So the experiment will undoubtably fail
But it is certainly worthwhile to try to model it and see when and how the experiment fails and under what circumstances it will work.
-----------
Now - here is the rub. The ratio of males to females in any species is not exactly 50:50. Clearly a sexual imbalence tipped in favour of males will cause the species to die off unless there is some mechanizm that limits this.
Species have been on planet earth for billions of years so it is clear that the sex ratio has a negative feedback mechanizm and is quite stable.
It is not clear to me at this point what that mechanizm might be unless it happens to be that one never can achieve complete genetic mixing and hense the sub optimal population will collapse before any real harm can be done.
Alas - this does look like a real oversimplification. Females are XX and Males are XY. This means that a male can only inherit "X" linked tendancies from their mothers while females can inherit from either parent. It strikes me that there must be some mechanism in the X chromosome which prevents a significant shift in the ratios of XY to XX offspring.
As some people, i.e. non-anglers, may not know Carp are an exotic species here in North America. Only recently have anglers begun to target Carp for sport as they are in fact extremely wary as well as good fighters. They can also be eaten but only if the water they are found in is clean.
However, I am a proponent of native species. Thus, I am excited to see if Australia has any success with this program since this method could then be used in North America to eliminate (unlikely) or severelly reduce exotic species populations such as Carp, Lamprey, and Pacific Salmonids which, shockinly, are still being introduced into the Great Lakes in favor of native fish species.
They do not, however, mention any ways of controlling the spread of this gene in the wild, besides the obvious death of any affected population.
What other ways do you need?
bp
I can see where this might go.
...
1.) Australia's GM carp gets introduced in to various fresh water lakes throughout the world by fanatics.
2.) Scientists produce a new counter balancing all female GM carp.
3.) This creates a strange game of war between the 2 GM carp races.
4.) Scientists regroup and produce a 9/10ths maleness carp.
5.) Scientists continue Gene Manipulation until they have the desired population size of carp.
Pretty soon our environment will be anything we want. Should we mess with the natural order of things I wonder?
They did this on Jurassic park... Except on Jurassic park the creatures evolved so they could reproduce and nearly killed everybody on the island :/.
I'm scared...
there are discovery channel specials about this. it's been in production for years.
interestingly enough, based on how this goes, they may do the same thing to the snake-head fish (no really. seriously.) in new york state and elsewhere. Another candidate is the zebra muscle found in many lakes and rivers in north america.
programs like this seem like a good idea in order to get rid of an animal without a natural predator where they have invaded and pushed out the natural ecosystem. as long as there is no chance of natural migration to affect other populations, then it is truly a terrific way to get rid of a populace.
Of course, technology like this must be treated with much care. The genie is out of the bottle now, so it is just yet another thing to keep tabs on.
What a load of carp!
... Australia's efforts to control the carp population using a 'male-only' gene.
I don't think that using Male-only instead of Female-only was the lesson we were supposed to learn from Jurassic Park.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
living next to lake michigan I know that carp are a ruff fish... if you catch a carp in the tributaries you have to leave it on shore you are not supposed to return it... these fish suck.. and now a new species is in the great lakes called the big head carp these things are huge... I see carp as a worthless species be gone with them... I dont' think these carp will make it out to the mainland
More seriously, the ecological problem they create is that they stir up so much mud in lakes and rivers they make them uninhabitable by anything else. They're also incredibly prolific. As far as most Australians are concerned, the only good carp is a dead carp.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Whilst this is a legitimate concern, the main river system infected with carp in Australia is the Murray-Darling. Its mouth is several hundred kilometres away from any container ports, and in any case the last couple of hundred kilometres of its length are salty enough to keep carp out anyway (IIRC).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Once the population becomes skewed toward males, the ability to father female offspring will become a big selective advantage. I'd be a lot more convinced by the article if they discussed results of actual population simulations.
Another rabbit virus called callicivirus was introduced about 10 years ago, which has also helped to bring the population down to a less damaging level.
There are dozens of other introduced pests that hugely damage the Australian natural environment and agricultural productivity, from cats, to weeds like Paterson's Curse. Due to this, and past successes, Australian governments throw a lot of money at research into biological control.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Instead of trying to genetically engineer them out of existance they ought to get with the California Windmill Co. Look what id did for their bird problem.
If the Australians really want to get rid of the ability of the male fish to reproduce, simply give them all computers and /. subscriptions. They'll never mate again...
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
I read "Australia To Use GM To Control Crap."
Thinking to myself: How can a company that makes crap help control crap???
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I hope they have freakin lasers on their heads.
I have heard about people introducing 'snakehead' fish into the population of the wild where they were not native and then the snakehead became the dominant fish species. In Florida there have been so many Oscars and Jack Dempsey fish let loose that they have started a 'native' population and are now on the fish species list ( last I checked ). This is not the first time that fish and other animals have become native and dominant in an area that they were not initially. Man himself was not native to america and when we came here we destroyed many species, although no one will admit that.
I don't think the 'male' only gene will work. Fish are especially prone to genitic mutation and also supposedly' known for 'gender conversion' ( male -> female or female -> male). In fact guppies have hundreds of 'varieties' and some people think they are different species ( fancy guppies vs common guppies ) but they are the same species. Koi and Goldfish are also this same way and BOTH of these specied are related to the common carp. Both throw many mutations. I could see a case where a mutation could be a male only breeder mutates and breeds females easily.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
You could even go as far as saying that they have a checkered past (myxomatosis, rabbits, australia).
I'm not sure whether I should
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Up until late 2000 I was living in a little town called Mildura, which sits on the Murray River, in Australia. A river full of carp. In the five years I lived there, I would have heard hundreds of solutions for the carp population problem put forward. Granted, most were completely ridiculous, but that's because I heard most of them in the pub.
The one that interested me most though, was one where either an electrical charge, or a vibration (I may have heard both) was used in a section of water, stunning all fish and causing them to rise to the surface, allowing the carp to be picked up by hand or net. Then the charge or vibration or whatever would be switched off and the rest of the fish (not that many other fish around Mildura anyway) would wake up and swim away. Supposedly, you could get a couple of teams to simply sweep up and down the Murray River for a couple of years, and the carp population would be reduced so dramatically that the local ecology could recover and native species would be able to get a foothold again.
I have to admit I was skeptical. The rumour was that the project was stopped because it would be cruelty to the fish... at the time I was thinking that maybe it was a complete crock of shit.
Has anyone else out there heard of something like this? Is is a crock of shit?
"It is the prerogative of fools (or noobs) to utter truths that no one else will speak."
Why don't they just make GM nets that catch all the carp? Then you don't have a problem with interspecies this or that or migrating fish populations.
What amazes me about this topic (though it shouldn't - this IS /.) is the almost automatic descent into emotionalism, bad assumptions or Jurassic park references to put forward some sort of specious (sorry) argument against this tactic. What particularly disappoints me is that only ONE poster has done the math...
Queuetue:
"This thousand-carp batch's children will all be male.
That 10,000-carp batch's children will also all be male.
That 100,000-carp batch's children will also be male.
And so on. The existing males will have to work extra hard to find females, and eventually, one species (ether the GM ones or the non-GM ones, quickly followed by the GM ones) will die out, with considerably less fish left afterwards."
The idea here is that there is a geometric increase in the ratio of Male-Only to Male/Female breedings - no gay jokes, please - you know what I mean - until the carp population in AU is entirely made up of males. At this point it does not matter whether some of those males can produce female offspring as there are no female fish for them to reproduce with.
I am not a manual I am a human being! - The distress call of the TechSupport Badger
Coincidently, I watched this Bond film for the first time on the PVR last night. This was Blofeld's scheme - the threat of sterilizing whole species. I would recommend supplying pretty female fish with atomizers with the active chemical....
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Has anyone figured how many abortions this would prevent in those parts of the world where female fetuses are often selectively aborted, or even abandoned post-birth?
In a couple of generations, this could greatly ameliorate the export of tech jobs, too. Meanwhile, people would pay for this. The black market opportunities are worth 100s of billions.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
over pollute the rivers, or collect the carp and dump them in the tennessee river in the US.
they'll be sure to be sterile in no time at all!
none of them are salt water species either but they colonised the antipodies rather well despite massive salt water barriers.
Cheers,
R.
Maybe you live in interesting times
It is even more curious that mainland Asian plant species tend to out-compete American local species
:-)
Lower wages?
Table-ized A.I.
Even if the GM fish were succesful and all the goldfish were killed, won't the foolish/careless people just reintroduce more foreign species again? Maybe you need to GM the fishermen with a new improved clue gene.
It is worth noting that ichthologist refer to Centrarchidae as Sunfish because the name Bass means to many things to to many people.
you need both males and females to grow a population of fish, if you didn't realise it.
Actually, there is some dispute as to whether gambusia are truly good for controlling mosquito populations. It is more likely a factor of them either being able to survive in disturbed and polluted habitats, or outcompeting native species that also eat mosquito larvae. Gambusia are native to America, and alongside the carp are considered an invasive species in Australia...see here or here for more info.
In other news the definition of a species requires that an animal can not interbreed with another recognized species to produce fertile offspring. I think its safe to say that the male only gene will not be arriving in a bass/trout/pike near you.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
Did anybody else read GM as game master?
Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Take that damn carp.
-twb
Did anyone else think Australia was going to use GM to control crap?
Heh.
The fish that go into the river don't breed true there is two stages, the one's in the tanks produce females that only produce males but there offspring are normal. They just keep putting enough female that only produce males in the river that complete with the normal female till there's only males. If they stop putting the GM females in the process stops.
I usually don't post, but as a professional geneticist, I'll weigh in with my opinion. In short, this gene will have no long term effect on carp populations. My reasoning is thus:
In the short term, carp populations will decrease. This gene will "infect" carp, shifting the balance of male and female. With less females, the population will plummet. Evolutionary pressure will select against the infected fish.
However, evolutionary pressure will simultaneously select for fish that are resistant to this maleness gene. Since the biggest competitors for resources are usually members of one's own species, the population of resistant fish will grow and multiply much faster than the layman would expect, since their main competitors (The malness strain) are not reproducing.
The end result is that this gene which selects against carriers will die off. Maybe even in as short as 20 generations. A gene which is not useful is usally lost. A gene that is downright harmful to a population will quickly be eliminated. It's a basic rule of population genetics.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
Well, I'm pretty stupid and I knew what it meant immediately (even w/o the DNA icon). What does that make you?
Aren't Australians the people who introduced bunnies to control a native pest population? Now the continent is overrun by bunnies, without an ecoweb of predators to keep them in check, pushing the existing ecosystem to the brink. And now they'll tinker with the genome, which they understand even less. At least they're surrounded by ocean, but with overnight shipping, that's small comfort.
--
make install -not war