- Rapid assessments of the impact of COVID-19 on the availability of quality seed to farmers: Advocating immediate practical, remedial and preventative action. Structural weaknesses ruthlessly exposed.
- Initial Investment in Diversity Is the Efficient Thing to Do for Resilient Forest Landscape Restoration. Spend the money on securing diverse seeds up front, you cheapskates. No word on what the effect of the pandemic.
- Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits. Right seeds, right species, right place, the right way. But save forests first.
- The impact of near-real-time deforestation alerts across the tropics. Getting alerts saves forests, especially in protected areas, but only in Africa.
- Integration of georeferenced and genetic data for the management of biodiversity in sheep genetic resources in Brazil. Travel 300 km for a genetically different sheep. I wonder if it’s the same for trees.
- Worldwide occurrence records suggest a global decline in bee species richness. 25% fewer species in GBIF in past 25 years. Yeah but there may be alternative explanations for that, as a bee taxonomist points out. Non-Twitter link available too.
- Investigating genetic relationship of Brassica juncea with B. nigra via virtual allopolyploidy and hexaploidy strategy. Wild relative could be used to synthesize some really cool mustards.
- Seed storage behavior of Musa balbisiana Colla, a wild progenitor of bananas and plantains – Implications for ex situ germplasm conservation. Orthodox, but difficult to regenerate.
- Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains: The context of reports of apparent historical declines. No evidence for systematic declines in micronutrient concentrations.
- A Study on the Biodiversity of Pigmented Andean Potatoes: Nutritional Profile and Phenolic Composition. Lots of diversity in micronutrients in traditional landraces. No word on temporal changes.
- Status and prospects of genome‐wide association studies in plants. Dissecting complex traits has never been easier, and is getting easier. It says here.
- A review of the interactions between biodiversity, agriculture, climate change, and international trade: research and policy priorities. Policy priorities? Increased recognition of international trade in biodiversity targets, goals, and policy; and increased communication of the impacts of food on biodiversity.
- The Impact of Diversified Farming Practices on Terrestrial Biodiversity Outcomes and Agricultural Yield Worldwide: A Systematic Review Protocol. Looking forward to this one.
When do we have enough biodiversity? Enough already!? Is all biodiversity good? It seems there are increasing trends in the developed world to have “biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake”. Are there debates, papers on that topic that you can recommend, or is that too hot a potato to discuss? Maybe you can place some of that in your great blog.
Maybe the Dasgupta Review might be a good place to look for that sort of discussion?
Liugi: Maarten is right. We are being sold a dogma on the value of biodiversity. The Dasgupta review is weak on agriculture (although the food we eat is the most value of biodiversity to us).
For example, the Dasgupta report claims (p. 75) “To these we may add the interesting finding reported in Renard and Tilman (2019) that even crop diversity can yield higher food production.” But the Renard and Tilman paper is entitled “National food production stabilized by crop diversity” – that is` yield stability’ – and is nothing to do with `higher’ production. They needed a good agronomist on the team rather than lots of citing Tilman papers. The Dasgupta review was funded by the UK Treasury and not the Ministry that covers agriculture (DEFRA): big mistake.
After Darwin we should be looking at the results of natural selection on biodiversity: `better’ rather than `more’. This certainly applies to our crops and domestic animals. For example, our cereals were chosen (wisely) from 15,000 wild grasses.