The ecology of population persistence for wild, crop, and crop-wild hybrid Brassica and its implications for transgenes escaped from canola

摘要: The dormancy, longevity, and germination cuing performance of Brassica rapa crop-wild hybrid seeds were determined in field and greenhouse experiments to understand how combining two genomes from different selective backgrounds affected critical characters influencing population persistence. The work was undertaken also to help provide an ecological foundation for risk assessment of the persistence of escaped genetically-engineered crop genes. Due to pronounced maternal effects on dormancy and germination cuing, first generation B. rapa wild x crop hybrids were more likely to persist than B. rapa crop x wild hybrids. Wild x crop hybrids had higher rates of dormancy and more appropriate germination cuing than the reciprocal cross. I also studied the effects of two independent, oil-modification transgenes (high stearate and high laurate) on the seed and seedling performance of wild B. rapa x Brassica …