- South Sudan crisis affecting its livestock too.
- Sugar, spice, and everything nice in Zanzibar.
- The secret to sustainable fisheries: recycling waste.
- Wheat going to be hit by heat.
- The history of growing food in Cape Town.
- More from the University of Reading’s cacao quarantine facility. With video goodness.
- You can get Austrian camel cheese at the Jaipur Literary Festival.
- Khan Academy does biodiversity.
Brainfood: Safflower diversity, Afghan wheat diversity, Cassava diversity, SP drought tolerance, Olive diversity, Community genebanks, Organic yield meta-analysis, On farm success, Standardizing phenotyping, Wild collecting
- Assessment of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in a Global Reference Collection of 531 Accessions of Carthamus tinctorius L. (Safflower) Using AFLP Markers. Bayesian analysis of genetic diversity of global (43 countries) collection held in India reveals 19 geographic groups, with most diversity in the Near East and Iran–Afghanistan regions.
- Molecular evaluation of orphan Afghan common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) landraces collected by Dr. Kihara using single nucleotide polymorphic markers. Analysis (Bayesian, natch) of genetic diversity of over 400 wheat landraces collected 1950-1970 and conserved at the Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Japan reveals agroecological patterning and hotspot in Badakhshan province.
- Sources of pest resistance in cassava. Analysis of 89 trials over 25 years involving the CIAT cassava collection identifies 129 landraces with high resistance to thrips, 33 to green mites and 19 to whiteflies.
- Screening sweetpotato genotypes for tolerance to drought stress. Days to permanent wilting point (DPWP) points to 8 promising clones in Kenya.
- Olive domestication and diversification in the Mediterranean Basin. About 400 wild and cultivated accessions divide up into W, central and E groups and show evidence of admixture among them and local domestication events.
- The Multiple Functions and Services of Community Seedbanks. More than just conservation.
- Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap. More data and fancier maths finds a lower organic yield gap (20%), which is halved by multi-cropping and crop rotations.
- Conserving landraces and improving livelihoods: how to assess the success of on farm conservation projects? All you need is two graphs.
- Finding Our Way through Phenotypes. “We urge all biologists, data managers, and clinicians to actively support the development, evaluation, refinement, and adoption of methodologies, tools, syntaxes, and standards for capturing and computing over phenotypic data and to collaborate in bringing about a coordinated approach.” Amen.
- Wild food in Europe: A synthesis of knowledge and data of terrestrial wild food as an ecosystem service. 65 million people collect, and at least 100 million consume, wild food. But only 81 plants? Thought it would be more. But even so, quite an ecosystem service.
Global Forest Genetic Resources: Taking Stock
December saw the publication of a special, open access issue of Forest Ecology and Management on “Global Forest Genetic Resources: Taking Stock.” Ian Dawson, one of the editors, has blogged chez nous about a couple of the papers. Here is the full table of contents, with links to both the papers and Ian’s posts.
Loo J, Souvannavong O, Dawson IK (2014) Seeing the trees as well as the forest: the importance of managing forest genetic resources. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 1-8.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.08.014
Dawson IK, Leakey R, Clement CR, Weber JC, Cornelius JP, Roshetko JM, Vinceti B, Kalinganire A, Tchoundjeu Z, Masters E, Jamnadass R (2014) The management of tree genetic resources and the livelihoods of rural communities in the tropics: non-timber forest products, smallholder agroforestry practices and tree commodity crops. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 9-21.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.01.021
Koskela J, Vinceti B, Dvorak W, Bush D, Dawson IK, Loo J, Kjaer ED, Navarro C, Padolina C, Bordács S, Jamnadass R, Graudal L, Ramamonjisoa L (2014) Utilization and transfer of forest genetic resources: a global review. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 22-34.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.07.017
Graudal L, Aravanopoulos F, Bennadji Z, Changtragoon S, Fady B, Kjær ED, Loo J, Ramamonjisoa L, Vendramin GG (2014) Global to local genetic diversity indicators of evolutionary potential in tree species within and outside forests. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 35-51.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.05.002
Wickneswari R, Rajora OP, Finkeldey R, Aravanopoulos F, Bouvet J-M, Vaillancourt RE, Kanashiro M, Fady B, Tomita M, Vinson C (2014) Genetic effects of forest management practices: global synthesis and perspectives. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 52-65.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.06.008
Thomas E, Jalonen R, Loo J, Boshier D, Gallo L, Cavers S, Bordács S, Smith P, Bozzano M (2014) Genetic considerations in ecosystem restoration using native tree species. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 66-75.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.07.015
Alfaro RI, Fady B, Vendramin GG, Dawson IK, Fleming RA, Sáenz-Romero C, Lindig-Cisneros RA, Murdock T, Vinceti B, Navarro CM, Skrøppa T, Baldinelli G, El-Kassaby YA, Loo J (2014) The role of forest genetic resources in responding to biotic and abiotic factors in the context of anthropogenic climate change. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 76-87.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.04.006
Pritchard HW, Moat JF, Ferraz JBS, Marks TR, Camargo JLC, Nadarajan J, Ferraz IDK (2014) Innovative approaches to the preservation of forest trees. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 88-98.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.08.012
I wonder how many of the recently-published top 20 research questions on forestry and landscapes we can now tick off.
The Global Crop Diversity Trust meets its stakeholders at Green Week
Lots going on today.
The Crop Trust’s First Stakeholder Discussion will be held on 16 January 2015 in Berlin, Germany, in conjunction with the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), during the annual Green Week International Agricultural Fair. Its thematic focus will be on the central role of international crop collections in preserving crop diversity…
It all starts at 4pm. Follow on Twitter, if you dare. And yes, that’s a new logo and website.
Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food
Jeremy is at the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food. If we’re all very good, he may tweet it live(ish) for us. And we may even get some podcasts out of it, who knows…