Gene drives for the extinction of wild metapopulations

Jason W Olejarz; Martin A Nowak

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111654

Gene drives for the extinction of wild metapopulations

J Theor Biol. 2024 Jan 21:577:111654. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111654. Epub 2023 Nov 18.

Authors

Jason W Olejarz¹, Martin A Nowak²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA; Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA. Electronic address: olejarz@g.harvard.edu.
² Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA.

PMID: 37984587
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111654

Abstract

Population-suppressing gene drives may be capable of extinguishing wild populations, with proposed applications in conservation, agriculture, and public health. However, unintended and potentially disastrous consequences of release of drive-engineered individuals are extremely difficult to predict. We propose a model for the dynamics of a sex ratio-biasing drive, and using simulations, we show that failure of the suppression drive is often a natural outcome due to stochastic and spatial effects. We further demonstrate rock-paper-scissors dynamics among wild-type, drive-infected, and extinct populations that can persist for arbitrarily long times. Gene drive-mediated extinction of wild populations entails critical complications that lurk far beyond the reach of laboratory-based studies. Our findings help in addressing these challenges.

Keywords: Ecological engineering; Extinction; Population dynamics; Population genetics; Synthetic biology.

MeSH terms

Disasters*
Gene Drive Technology*
Humans
Population Dynamics