On 22 February 2008, the FAO Working Group on Biotechnology organised a side event to the 13th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) entitled "Biotechnology as a toolbox to study and monitor agricultural genetic resources". There were three speakers.
The first speaker was Dr. Andrea Sonnino, Secretary of the FAO Working Group on Biotechnology, who gave an overview of FAO's role and programmes in the field of Biotechnology. FAO implements its overall mandate, including its mandate in biotechnology, in four ways i.e. by providing advice to governments; technical assistance; information; and a meeting place for nations. Each of the four areas were covered individually in the presentation and he pointed out that two recent FAO publication were particularly relevant to the side event's theme i.e. The role of biotechnology in exploring and protecting agricultural genetic resources and Biotechnology tools for conservation and use of plants: A school play for senior students.
The second speaker was Professor Michael Hansen from the Technical University of Denmark, National Institute of Aquatic Resources in Denmark. Recent developments in molecular biology and genomics along with novel statistical methods and conceptual advances in population genetics and evolutionary biology have greatly increased the applicability of molecular markers for assisting in the preservation of wild populations. So far, mitochondrial DNA and, particularly, microsatellite DNA are the most commonly applied markers, but single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and novel methods for massively parallel sequencing are likely to revolutionize the field. His presentation provided examples of the application of molecular markers in conservation biology of fishes. The first example concerned the critically endangered North Sea houting (Coregonus oxyrhynchus), of which only one indigenous population remains. The second example concerned genetic interactions between stocked hatchery strain brown trout (Salmo trutta) and wild brown trout populations. The third example concerned a study of local adaptation in brown trout populations. The fourth example dealt with the European eel (Anguilla anguilla), which has experienced recent drastic population declines.
The third speaker was Professor Michele Morgante, from the Istituto Genomica Applicata in Udine, Italy, who gave a presentation on the application of DNA markers to monitoring adaptation and migration of forest tree species. He first described applications of neutral variation analysis to the Norway spruce and Scots pine. Then examples of adaptive variation analysis were provided, looking at variation for traits related to timing of bud set in the Norway spruce, Scots pine, Poplar and Aspen. He concluded that advances in sequencing technologies allow direct detection of sequence variation, that are useful for studying demographic phenomena (such as migrations or bottlenecks) and for studying adaptive phenomena (but here we need to find adaptive genes/mutations); that nucleotide variation is not the only type of sequence variation, there is also structural variation and transposable elements; and that next generation sequencing will revolutionize the field.
Shivaji Pandey, Chair of the FAO Working Group on Biotechnology, then moderated a short discussion, where the speakers were able to elaborate on some of the issues raised in their presentations, and finally thanked the three speakers for their excellent contributions.