Evolutionary "gene therapy" to protect native species from invasives?

[Skyhilist]

Note that I'm not using the term "gene therapy" in its traditional sense, so nobody freak out about its usage.

Another interesting process to possibly explore would be one of a type of almost gene therapy for native species affected by an invasive. As invasive species take their toll, evolution will occur. At least a very small percentage of even the most affected native species will be somewhat resistant to the effects of an invasive species. It might take quite awhile for these resistant genes to evolve on a larger scale within affected species so that they could become more resistant to invasives in general. However, suppose we could pinpoint some of the first individuals displaying resistant traits that were useful against invasives. Imagine then if we could isolate these genes and insert these naturally occurring genes into individuals of future generations of native species. This would make the whole species in general resistant to invasives overtime, because it would expedite their evolution (without inserting completely foreign genes like with GMOs), and make it so that their evolution outpaced that of the invasives, compensating for the initial disadvantage faced by these native species. Where hunting of highly r-selected invasives would likely be a futile effort, this seems like it could actually protected species put at risk if the technology and scientific knowledge became available for this to happen. Does anyone think that this might be feasible at some point?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Possibly, but what if by accelerating the evolutionary growth of a given native schools you fuck up the ecosystem in place by making it an apex predator and inadvertently cause the decrease number in other aquatic species in that area?

[Skyhilist]

It'd have to be done very carefully and would likely require trials first. But I think it wouldn't be too much of a problem if geneticists could pinpoint specifically what affect newly evolved genes were having. For example, if a native organism evolved a gene that put them at an unusual advantage over their usual prey items, that gene shouldn't be spread, even if it would also make them more resistant to invasive species. I think the idea would be target genes that specifically would make a species more resistant to the invasive species, but not resistant to other native stressors to that species (like natural predators or competitors). Could be tricky; but if the method was applied evenly to all the native species, the newly-gained advantages would likely cancel themselves out for all of the species except the invasive one that wouldn't receive this treatment.