Gene flow in Brassica napus: effects on herbivory, ferality and the seed bank
Tina D'Hertefeldt
dept. Plant Ecology and Systematics, Lund University, Sweden
Worldwide cultivation of oilseed rape (Brassica napus), which is second only to soybean for oil production, covered 28 million hectares in 2008. In Sweden, oilseed rape was grown on 110 000ha. With large land areas devoted to oilseed rape production, the crop becomes highly important to both natural and agricultural ecosystems. B. napus has been implemented as a species with high capacity for both volunteer and feral population establishment due to large seed production, long-term seed dormancy and potential for out-crossing with wild relatives.
The wild relative B. rapa ssp. sylvestris which was previously a common agricultural weed is now assumed to be threatened. Furthermore, varieties of genetically modified oilseed may be cultivated in the EU countries in future and it is therefore important to evaluate the effect of potential B. napus gene flow on wild B. rapa. The effects of increased insect resistance on wild B. rapa, and the roles of feral B. napus and the B. napus seedbank in spatial and temporal B. napus gene flow will be discussed.
