Establishment of an international consortium on genetic pollution by agricultural activities

Project Gist

Investigate forest microorganisms for future ecosystem and humankind.

Keywords

Wood-rot fungi, Forest biomass, Genetic pollution, Genome engineering

Background and Purpose

“Genetic pollution” destroys the genetic diversity of a species and significantly reduces the abundance of genetic resources in nature and, consequently, species diversity. In many cases, extermination of endemic species by crossing with foreign animals brought in as pets is taken up, but in fact, large-scale cultivation in agriculture may result in the loss of genetic diversity in wild species frequently on a global scale. It is necessary to objectively grasp the current state of genetic pollution caused by agriculture from a global perspective and take effective measures to solve this environmental problem.

Project Achievements

With the aim of investigating the actual situation of genetic pollution using edible basidiomycetes as a model, two international workshops were held with 132 attendees from a total of 14 countries, and an international consortium to address this issue was launched. We have also succeeded in breeding varieties that do not produce spores and hereby will not cause genetic contamination by using genome editing technology. Many of these results were presented at domestic and international conferences and received three prizes, and led to the acquisition of research funds such as KAKENHI and bilateral exchange programs.

Future Prospects

We aim to analyze genetic pollution worldwide by the consortium formed this time. In addition, through two international exchange programs starting in October, we plan to promote joint research on newly discovered research topics.

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Joint Research/Academic Institutions Abroad

SAAS, JIAU, CAS (China), RDA, GNU (Korea), WUR (Netherlands), HUJ (Israel), BRC (Hungary), CMU, Meijo Univ., MFLU (Thai), Clark Univ. (USA), YSU (Armenia), GAU(Georgia) etc.

Principal Investigator