Scientists are worried as this single mutation unexpectedly provides the fly (Drosophila melanogaster) with resistance to a range of commonly available, but chemically unrelated, pesticides. Significant also, is this species is rarely targeted with pesticides and many of the chemicals it is resistant to, it has never been exposed to before.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research (CESAR) that made the discovery believe the mutation arose in Drosophila soon after the introduction of DDT and has since spread throughout the world. The gene has also persisted rather than, as expected, disappearing as the use of DDT around the world declined.
"This is a warning that we may need to rethink our overall strategies to control insect pests," says University of Melbourne geneticist, Dr Phil Batterham, and Program Leader for the Chemical Stress Program within CESAR, a special research centre that includes researchers from the Universities of Melbourne, La Trobe and Monash.
"The fact that a single mutation can confer resistance to DDT and a range of unrelated pesticides, even to those the species has never encountered, reveals new risks and costs to the chemical control of pest insects. Unless we reassess our current methods of pest management, our future options for control may become severely restricted," he says.
"If this mutation was found on a pest insect, many options for the chemical control of that insect would have been removed."
The research is published in the latest edition of the prestigious journal Science.
Batterham suggests that it is now imperative that research and industry focus on refining integrated pest management, which incorporates a broad arsenal of pest control me
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Contact: Jason Major
jmajor@unimelb.edu.au
61-3-8344-0181
University of Melbourne
26-Sep-2002