Assessing ecological risks and benefits of genetically modified crops 99

Abstract: Genetically modified (GM) crops and biotechnology are providing new opportunities for increasing crop productivity and tackling agriculture problems, such as diseases, pests and weeds, abiotic stress and nutritional limitations of staple food crops. As GM crops are being adopted in various locations with different ecosystems, a scientifically based understanding of the environmental effects of cultivations of GM crops would assist decision makers worldwide in ensuring environmental safety and sustainability. In this paper are discussed some of the most important problems related to the GM crops into the environment such as: plant protection, hybridisation, ecological effects of HRCs, gene flow, biodiversity, stress, ecological risks (ERA), effects on the soil ecosystem etc

Assessing ecological risks and benefits of genetically modified crops

Genetically modified (GM) crops and biotechnology are providing new opportunities for increasing crop productivity and tackling agriculture problems, such as diseases, pests and weeds, abiotic stress and nutritional limitations of staple food crops. As GM crops are being adopted in various locations with different ecosystems, a scientifically based understanding of the environmental effects of cultivations of GM crops would assist decision makers worldwide in ensuring environmental safety and sustainability. In this paper are discussed some of the most important problems related to the GM crops into the environment such as: plant protection, hybridisation, ecological effects of HRCs, gene flow, biodiversity, stress, ecological risks (ERA), effects on the soil ecosystem etc

GROWTH CHARACTERISTICS OF Tilia tomentosa Moench. FROM DIFFERENT DISTRICTS IN THE REGIONS OF MARMARA AND WESTERN BLACK SEA IN TURKEY

Climate change will affect all ecosystem services of green areas in the districts. In many cases, the tree species in parks and districts are suffering from the increasingly warmer and drier summers and newly immigrated pests and diseases. Tilia tomentosa Moench. is considered as an important tree species under climate change for dry and warm conditions in Central and Southeastern Europe countries. This tree species is often used as valued urban tree. In the present study we investigate the growth patterns of T. tomentosa Moench. in relation to their growing conditions in order to evaluate its interactions in urban contexts. All the studied characters varied significantly among the sampled districts. Within each of the regions, number of flowers showed a wide range 72-104 per m(2) in Marmara region and 54-124 per m(2) in Western Black Sea region. All studied characters, beyond number of flowers, positively correlated with each other. This study revealed that especially fruit length had a strong and positive correlation with altitude and a high negative correlation with temperature. Further researches are required to quantify more growth flower characters of the species from Turkey