Speculative Species

In Speculative Evolution, we envisioned how species could be further developed to increase their resilience based on scientific publications on synthetic biology, genetic engineering and robotics, and formulated text prompts to create AI-generated images using DALL-E. As a result, each speculative species in the environment has a backstory rooted in real-life scenarios.
 
 


Tiger Mosquito
Tiger Mosquito
2019genetically engineered by Oxitec have escaped human control after trials in Brazil
Open field trials by Evans et al., 2019
2054resilient strain of supermosquitoes engineered to eliminate the escaped mosquitoes

Lineage of the 10 species from a total of 14

    • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (26-1)
      • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-1-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (26-1-1)
    • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-2Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (26-2)
      • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-2-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (26-2-1)
    • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-3Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (26-3)
      • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-3-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Zurich, Switzerland (26-3-1)
        • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-3-1-1Samsung G955F, Android 9, Berlin, Germany (26-3-1-1)
      • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-3-2Samsung G950F, Android 9, São Paulo, Brazil (26-3-2)
        • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-3-2-1Samsung A725F, Android 14, Iloilo City, Philippines (26-3-2-1)
        • Tiger Mosquito, Species 26-3-2-2Samsung G986U1, Android 13, Monterrey, Mexico (26-3-2-2)

Transgenic Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes Transfer Genes into a Natural Population

Evans, B.R., Kotsakiozi, P., Costa-da-Silva, A.L. et al. Sci Rep 9, 13047 (2019). doi:10.1038/s41598-019-49660-6
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49660-6

Abstract

In an attempt to control the mosquito-borne diseases yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika fevers, a strain of transgenically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes containing a dominant lethal gene has been developed by a commercial company, Oxitec Ltd. If lethality is complete, releasing this strain should only reduce population size and not affect the genetics of the target populations. Approximately 450 thousand males of this strain were released each week for 27 months in Jacobina, Bahia, Brazil. We genotyped the release strain and the target Jacobina population before releases began for >21,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Genetic sampling from the target population six, 12, and 27–30 months after releases commenced provides clear evidence that portions of the transgenic strain genome have been incorporated into the target population. Evidently, rare viable hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature. The release strain was developed using a strain originally from Cuba, then outcrossed to a Mexican population. Thus, Jacobina Ae. aegypti are now a mix of three populations. It is unclear how this may affect disease transmission or affect other efforts to control these dangerous vectors. These results highlight the importance of having in place a genetic monitoring program during such releases to detect un-anticipated outcomes.
Map of Jacobina. Ovitraps where samples were collected are indicated with colored dots, coded by neighborhood. Releases were made in the neighborhoods of Pedra Branca, Catuaba, and Inocoop but never in the Centro area. © OpenStreetMap contributors.
  1. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) on the OX513A release strain and three neighborhoods Jacobina (Centro and Catuaba/Pedra Branca) before releases began.
  2. Hybrid index (h-index) as performed in INTROGRESS10. An index of 1.0 indicates the “pure” OX513A individuals, 0.0 indicates the “pure” Jacobina pre-release individuals. Individuals are organized by neighborhood indicated at bottom of the figure, then by collection date: pre-release, 6, 12 or 27–30 months post release. Fluorescence verified F1 hybrids are grouped and labeled as F1. The horizontal dashed line represents cutoff (h-index0.02) the maximum observed pre-release.
  3. ADMIXTURE11 analysis of all individual genotypes. Proportion of each color for each individual represents the proportion of that individual’s ancestry attributable to the red (OX513A) or blue (Jacobina pre-release) cluster.