Frankensalar

[scotgillespie]

Todays horror story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22694239

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1763/20131047

[Billy]

I saw that myself this morning.

I did not know that salmon sometimes mate with brown trout even without being GM.

Billy

[scotgillespie]

Yip, as a general rule to further you go down the evolutionary scale, the genetic ease of interspecies hybridization increases. So, all that you need is opportunity.

In virtually all cases the hybrid offspring is not sexually viable, however this is not completely impossible, and is one possible evolutionary route.

The hole on the super salmon containment theory is relying in making them triploid, which is really just a production process..., and with my sad QA hat on if its a process; then its liable for failure at some point...

:worms You could actually argue that due to Brown Trout's variable chromosome count that they are really a long-time-ago product of hybridization themselves.

[Traditionalist]

It does occur naturally, but not all that often. The key there is indeed "opportunity". The problem with genengineered stuff is that the results are invariably unpredictable and almost invariably deleterious. Even slight spawning changes can cause widespread interbreeding. Actually modifying various genes can have very odd results.