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Issue Environ. Biosafety Res.
Volume 7, Number 2, April-June 2008
Page(s) 105 - 108
Section Roundtable
DOI 10.1051/ebr:2008007
Published online 13 June 2008

Environ. Biosafety Res. 7 (2008) 105-108
DOI: 10.1051/ebr:2008007

Comment on "Session V: Estimating Likelihood and Exposure", by Zaida Lentini, Environ. Biosafety Res. 5 (2006) 193-195

Franco Digiovanni1 and Peter G. Kevan2

1  Airzone One Ltd., 222 Matheson Boulevard East, Mississauga, Ontario, L4Z 1X1, Canada
2  Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada

Received March 6, 2007; accepted April 1st, 2008; published online 13 June 2008

Abstract - We comment on Zaida Lentini's summary of Session V (titled "Estimating Likelihood and Exposure") of the 9th International Symposium on the Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms. We provide an explanation of the drawbacks of using empirical pollen dispersion models, based largely on the general representativeness of the data used to generate the empirical models. We exemplify the drawbacks by highlighting the limited data used to develop the empirical model of Gustafson (presented in the same Symposium session). We provide a discussion of the meaning of "worst-case" assessments for pollen dispersion, how "worst-case" assumptions are commonly used in environmental impact assessments and how regulators will view worst-case impact assessments differently from the regulated (biotech) community. Finally, we clarify the advantages and disadvantages of mechanistic models and explain why they are often used in preference to empirical models in environmental impact assessments.


Key words: pollen dispersion / gene flow / mechanistic models / empirical models / data representativeness / worst-case / environmental impact assessments

Corresponding author: fdi-giovanni@airzoneone.com

© ISBR, EDP Sciences 2008


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