Brainfood: Sorghum core diversity, Indian mango diversity, Montia potential, Assisted migration, Corchorus diversity, Soil DNA, Fire!, Coffee pest, Earthworms

Making life simpler for you, we have created an open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. If you’re already using Mendeley, feel free to join the group (and use it to suggest papers we might miss). You can also discuss papers there, but frankly, we’d prefer you to do that here. Or on Facebook. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way. Are we cool, or what?

• Variation in flowering time in sorghum core collection and mapping of QTLs controlling flowering time by association analysis. 4 QTLs and 7 loci detected under different conditions. Is that, like, a lot?
• Evaluation of genetic diversity among commercial cultivars, hybrids and local mango (Mangifera indica L.) genotypes of India using cumulative RAPD and ISSR markers. Just one big happy family.
• Montia fontana L. (Portulacaceae), an interesting wild vegetable traditionally consumed in the Iberian Peninsula. Aquatic herb has high fibre and lipids. High oxalate too though. Breeders enjoined to get to work. On Montia. Riiiiight.
• Taking stock of the assisted migration debate. It’s REALLY complicated. Scientists are not that great at explaining it. More work needed all round. But now we have fancy diagrams.
• Genetic diversity and relationships in Corchorus olitorius (Malvaceae s.l.) inferred from molecular and morphological data. Out of Africa. Ethiopia, to be exact.
• Meta-barcoding of ‘dirt’ DNA from soil reflects vertebrate biodiversity. Wonder whether it works with agricultural ‘dirt.’
• The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth. Entertaining gallop through the history of the use of fire to manage landscapes around the world and down the ages. Need to catch my breath here.
• Some like it hot: The influence and implications of climate change on coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) and coffee production in East Africa. That title just had to come sometime, didn’t it.
• A critique of earthworm molecular phylogenetics. So apparently “molecular phylogenetics is now on the verge of revolutionizing earthworm systematics.” Beyond satire.