AGROVOC

Food allergy is defined as an adverse health effect arising from a specific immune-mediated response that occurs reproducibly on oral exposure to a given food, which may or may not be mediated by food-specific immunoglobulin class E (IgE) antibodies. (FAO and WHO. 2022. Risk Assessment of Food Allergens. Part 1 – Review and validation of Codex Alimentarius priority allergen list through risk assessment. Meeting Report. Food Safety and Quality Series No. 14. Rome.)

Gene banks are facilities where genetic material can be conserved and made available for users such as breeders, researchers and even farmers. Germplasm – the genetic material of living resources – is the focus of these collections and in the case of plant gene banks is typically stored as seeds, seedlings, tissue and other forms that contain genetic information. (FAO. 2025. Glossary for aquatic genetic resources for food and agriculture. CGRFA-20/25/6.2/Inf.1. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cd4254en)

Dendroctonus micans, the great spruce bark beetle, is a species of bark beetle native to the coniferous forests of Europe and Asia. The beetles burrow into the bark of spruce and other coniferous trees and lay eggs there. The larvae feed on the phloem under the bark; they can girdle the tree if present in large enough numbers. The species is a serious pest of commercial forestry, and is an invasive species in many regions where it is not native. (Wikipedia. 2025. Dendroctonus micans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendroctonus_micans)

A simplistic concept referring to the sequence of organisms on successive trophic levels within a community, through which energy is transferred by feeding; energy enters the food chain during fixation by primary producers (mainly green plants) and passes to the herbivores (primary consumers) and then to the carnivores (secondary and tertiary consumers). Nutrients are returned to the primary production by detritivores. (Anonymous (1998) AQUALEX. Multilingual glossary of aquaculture terms / Glossaire multilingue relatif aux termes utilisés en aquaculture. CD ROM, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. & Praxis Publ., UK.)

Genetic improvement in agriculture refers to the process of selectively breeding crops, livestock or aquaculture farmed types with desirable traits in order to create offspring with improved characteristics. This is typically accomplished through careful selection of individuals with desirable traits and the controlled mating of those individuals to produce offspring with a higher likelihood of inheriting those traits. Traditional selective breeding is increasingly being supplemented by advanced technologies such as genomics and genetic engineering, which allows scientists to directly target or manipulate the DNA of organisms to enhance selection to create new traits or enhance existing ones. (FAO. 2025. Glossary for aquatic genetic resources for food and agriculture. CGRFA-20/25/6.2/Inf.1. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cd4254en)