Introduction

Abstract

The present catalogue is the result of the cooperation between three Danish environmental authorities: The National Forest and Nature Agency, The Danish Environmental Protection Agency, and TheNational Environmental Research Institute, Department of Terrestrial Ecology. The aim of the work presented was to compile a catalogue of test methods useful in risk assessment of genetically modified plants (GMPs), with the emphasis on competition, establishment, and ecosystem effects. A GMP may be defined as a plant with genes inserted from another plant or organism through non-conventional gene transfer (transformation). Thus, by this definition, natural sexual processes (i.e., mating and natural recombination) are excluded. Characters which have been altered in cultivated plants by transformation include: herbicide resistance, insect resistance, pathogen resistance, drought and frost tolerance, improved nitrogen fixation, increased protein or starch content, etc. (140).