Interested? It’s the topic of an online symposium planned for 9-11 March 2021. Details on the IPK website.
Nibbles: Vanilla, Maize vid, CIMMYT lines, Personal genebank, Fruit diversity
- Trees help natural enemies of pests in vanilla plantations.
- Cool video by Sherry Flint-Garcia on the history of maize. And its genetics.
- CIMMYT releases a bunch of interesting maize pre-breeding products, though they don’t call them that.
- Retired Turkish teacher starts seed bank.
- Area man is really into fruits.
Brainfood: CGIAR genebanks, Sweet potato heat, Rice breeding, CWR gap trifecta, PES, Wild potatoes, Wild olives, Rare olives, Cryo veggies, Broccoli diversity, Crop switching, Cattle diversity, IK
- Germplasm Acquisition and Distribution by CGIAR Genebanks. A lot of stuff going in, a lot of stuff coming out, to everyone’s benefit. 35 years of data, with special focus on the last 10.
- Intraspecific diversity as a reservoir for heat-stress tolerance in sweet potato. 132 out of 1973 accessions tolerant of heat, though in different ways. A prime example of the above benefits.
- Identification and characterization of high‐yielding, short‐duration rice genotypes for tropical Asia. Short-duration varieties will need to be a bit taller and leafier to yield more. Another example of the above benefits.
- Modelled distributions and conservation priorities of wild sorghums (Sorghum Moench). More stuff needs to go into the above genebanks, though, for example from N. Australia.
- Ex situ and in situ conservation gap analysis of crop wild relative diversity in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Same from the Fertile Crescent.
- In situ and ex situ conservation gap analyses of crop wild relatives from Malawi. And not just the above genebanks either.
- The Potential of Payment for Ecosystem Services for Crop Wild Relative Conservation. Ok, we have the gaps (see above), and now here we have the method. What’s stopping us?
- Assessing under-Estimation of Genetic Diversity within Wild Potato (Solanum) Species Populations. Wild diploid species more diverse than previously thought. So providing more ecosystem services?
- Genetic diversity and differentiation of Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata (Wall. & G.Don) Cif. in the Hajar Mountains of Oman. No word on the ecosystem services being provided.
- The investigation of minor and rare Tunisian olive cultivars to enrich and diversify the olive genetic resources of the country. Rare + minor doesn’t mean bad. But maybe an influx of Omani genes would help?
- Biobanking of vegetable genetic resources by in vitro conservation and cryopreservation. Yes, even for vegetables.
- From landrace to modern hybrid broccoli: the genomic and morphological domestication syndrome within a diverse B. oleracea collection. Four subpopulations: Calabrese broccoli landraces, hybrids, sprouting broccoli, and violet cauliflower. Diversity in modern varieties decreasing with time.
- Crop switching reduces agricultural losses from climate change in the United States by half under RCP 8.5. But it will have to be a lot of switching. Hopefully out of broccoli.
- The mosaic genome of indigenous African cattle as a unique genetic resource for African pastoralism. An influx of zebu genes about a thousand years ago is responsible for the success of African pastoralism.
- Protection of traditional agricultural knowledge and rethinking agricultural research from farmers’ perspective: A case from Turkey. Against power imbalances the gods themselves contend in vain.
Biodiversity Information System for Europe loses genebanks?
The Biodiversity Information System for Europe is a partnership between the European Commission and the European Environment Agency. It seems to have recently updated its website. Or at least that’s the impression I got from a recent tweet, so I checked it out. There’s no search function on the site, but some rapid browsing could not turn up any references to genebanks or agricultural biodiversity. So I googled “genebanks in:biodiversity.europa.eu” and I got a hit on a page that is no longer on the site. WayBackMachine turns up a 2016 version with some basic information on genetic resources for food and agriculture, including genebanks, that seems to have disappeared in the interim. Maybe the Biodiversity Information System for Europe has decided to focus on in situ conservation only? It seems a pity, if true.
A way forward on DSI?
You may remember an old blog post of mine over on the work website describing how an impasse over access and benefit sharing arrangements relating to “digital sequence information” (DSI) on plant genetic resources scuppered the most recent round of Plant Treaty negotiations. 1 No? Well, this is how I put it at the time:
Some countries, and many civil society organizations, contended … that seed companies would soon be able to produce and market new varieties simply by manipulating genomic data in open-access repositories. That is, without needing to access actual seeds, and thus triggering the ABS provisions of the Treaty. In their view, this is a loophole that should be closed.
Others said that this is far-fetched, and that DNA sequence data needs to be freely available for researchers and breeders to do their work properly, and deliver new, better varieties, faster. Charging scientists for using genomic data, even if a way could be found of doing it, would impede vital research.
I was a bit worried about the binary at the time. It was an easy — though maybe a bit lazy — way to summarize the situation, but surely there was room for nuance? That was brought home to me by a recent paper from the project Wissenschaftliche Lösungsansätze für Digitale Sequenzinformation (Scientific approaches for digital sequence information) from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
In past DSI discussions, a stark contrast has often been presented: either the status quo with an open-access model and extensive non-monetary benefit-sharing but zero monetary benefit-sharing OR a closed-access system with monetary benefit-sharing but dramatically reduced or zero non-monetary benefit-sharing and a loss of open-access. We are convinced that the debate between open access and monetary benefit-sharing is a false choice and that both principles can thrive if innovative ideas and open-mindedness are brought to the table.
And the paper is actually a great contribution to the cause of finding a workable middle way. It’s worth reading the whole thing, or at least the executive summary, but basically, it suggests 5 options:
- micro-levy
- membership fees
- cloud-based fees
- commons licences
- metadata & blockchain
I particularly like the micro-levy idea.
Do any data jockeys on here care to share their thoughts?