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Wondering whether glyphosate-resistant plants will keep their resistance after glyphosate is no longer being used. Will that vestigial trait become a liability
by skeltoac 2y ago
Wondering whether glyphosate-resistant plants will keep their resistance after glyphosate is no longer being used. Will that vestigial trait become a liability due to some extra energy costs, and eventually fall back out of the gene pool?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bell-cot 2y agoYes - eventually. The selective pressure to acquire resistance to a widely used herbicide is enormous. The "takes tiny a bit more energy" pressure to lose a useless trait is minimal.
- dasil003 2y agoAssuming the tradeoff is even energy related. Seems like the tradeoff could be against a whole slew of subtle things that apply in a diverse, natural environment, but may be less important in a monoculture.
- bell-cot 2y agoTrue. Though given enough time, simple entropy tends to remove useless genetic traits - because there is no selection against mutations which damage the genes for them.
- yxhuvud 2y agoIf nothing else random mutations will likely break it. But it would reaquire it pretty fast given selection pressure again.