In addition, biologists are trying to understand more completely the interactions of the organisms that live in rain- forest ecosystems. International cooperation is vital for these efforts to succeed. It is crucial that the United States provide leadership and support in this area. Agriculture should experience many significant changes in the next two de- cades. There is an urgent need to make American agriculture more efficient through research.
Good prospects exist to realize benefits from biotechnology in animal and crop agriculture.
The production of transgenic agricultural organisms with desirable simple agronomic traits, such as herbicide resistance, has already been accomplished. Scientists are making considerable progress in the produc- tion of transgenic organisms with more complex traits, such as drought tolerance. Obstacles to the transfer of complex traits should be overcome with increased basic research on gene expression and regulation. This report identifies many of the research opportunities that currently exist in biology and attempts to predict some of those that may emerge in the near future. This task is difficult, since biological research is progressing so rapidly.