Technologically modified genes in natural populations

Current theories of evolutionary and ecological genetics cannot be used for general statements on risk assessment of gene technology. In a simplifying model, the genes which are transferred from artificial populations are treated like mutations in the natural populations. It is shown how fast such mutants can become fixed depending on the transfer rate, the population size and the selection coefficient. However, our incomplete knowledge about living systems still does not allow reliable risk assessments because of our incomplete understanding of the underlying principles