- The role of wild fruits and vegetables in delivering a balanced and healthy diet. Not great, until they’re domesticated.
- Maize Diversity, Market Access, and Poverty Reduction in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Forget maize.
- Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil. Environment explained drought response in wild lentils better than molecular classification.
- Geographical distribution, diversity and gap analysis of East African sorghum collection conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. Both Sudans.
- Explaining the Ethiopian farmers’ perceptions on potential loss of traditional crop varieties: A principal components regression analysis. Poor farmers know more, and care more, about loss of traditional landraces.
- High-throughput sequencing of African chikanda cake highlights conservation challenges in orchids. Those are very biodiverse cakes, but not in a good way.
- Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation. It’s actually in pretty good shape, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.
- Phylogenetic Prediction of Alternaria Leaf Blight Resistance in Wild and Cultivated Species of Carrots. Look for taller material in clade A.
- Starch granule evidence for the earliest potato use in North America. S. jamesii may have been used for 10,000 years in Utah.
- Genome-Wide Association Study of Grain Architecture in Wild Wheat Aegilops tauschii. Two genetic lineages, with big differences in grain width and weight.
Nibbles: Dog & cat domestication, Domestication book, CGIAR genebanks, Famous trees, “Ancient” beans, ACACIA, Beer book, Melon breeding, Farming trees, CC & health
- Ancient Japanese dog burials show they helped with the hunt. At least in some places and for a while. Maybe.
- Ancient cat DNA shows they just helped themselves.
- I guess Alice Roberts’ new book will cover all that.
- IITA and ICARDA genebanks in the news.
- Cool trees.
- Is this the real story of Anasazi beans?
- Speeding up crop improvement in Africa.
- Extreme fermented beverages: my kind of book.
- Wal-Mart’s fancy new cantaloupe .
- Registering on-farm trees in Ghana.
- Oh what’s the point, we’re all doomed anyway.
Brainfood: Maize regeneration, Watkins collection, Jordan barley landraces, CWR in Europe, Early agriculture, Papaya knowledge, Cryo, Tree diversity, AM, Indegee, Wild beet, Early NE ag, Fire!
- Ex-situ conservation of maize germplasm from different latitudes. You can do it, but not without some genetic changes.
- High density genotyping of the A.E. Watkins Collection of hexaploid landraces identifies a large molecular diversity compared to elite bread wheat. There’s plenty of interesting variation there, as you’d expect.
- Changes in barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare) genetic diversity and structure in Jordan over a period of 31 years. No significant changes in the amount of genetic diversity in landraces collected in 1981 and in 2012, but later samples more homogenous and less locally distinct.
- Crop wild relatives range shifts and conservation in Europe under climate change. We’ll need genebanks.
- Isotope evidence for agricultural extensification reveals how the world’s first cities were fed. By opening up new land, basically, and never mind the fancy agronomic practices.
- Can the Introduction of Modern Crop Varieties in their Centre of Origin Affect Local Ecological Knowledge? A Case Study of Papaya in the Yucatan Peninsula. Yes, and not in a good way.
- Cryopreserved storage of clonal germplasm in the USDA National Plant Germplasm System. It really is a system.
- A meta-analysis of molecular marker genetic datasets for eastern Africa trees supports the utility of potential natural vegetation maps for planning climate-smart restoration initiatives. But you still have to do the trials.
- Global Diversity and Importance of Mycorrhizal and Nonmycorrhizal Plants. 72% of vascular plants have them.
- Factors associated with agrobiodiversity conservation: A case study on conservation of rice varieties in Barak valley, Assam, India. More connections means more varieties.
- Crop wild relative populations of Beta vulgaris allow direct mapping of agronomically important genes. Genotyping and phenotyping of 189 wild plants along a 10 km transect allows identification of disease resistance gene in the crops.
- Near Eastern Plant Domestication: A History of Thought. The punctuated-centric view is better, according to Occam.
- Fire and plant diversity at the global scale. They’re correlated, or at least associated.
Nibbles: Citrus conservation, Amazon civilizations, Agricultural adaptation, Farming First, Communicating impact, Church forests, Food Forever Initiative
- Conserving citrus in cryo.
- More rethinking of the early civilizations of the Amazon.
- Agriculture led to genetic changes in humans as much as in crops and livestock.
- Farming First goes all in on the SDGs. Oh, yeah, also I won the quiz. Ka-ching!
- Scientists, tell your stories for impact, including on policy.
- The sacred forests of Ethiopia, now there’s a story.
- The biggest story of them all: Food Forever!
Brainfood: CWR prioritization, CWR data, Yam core redux, Traditional landscape value, African rice domestication, Digital conservation, First farmers, Revived breed, Mitigation targets, Zoonoses, Population, JEB on legumes
- Broadening the Base, Narrowing the Task: Prioritizing Crop Wild Relative Taxa for Conservation Action. Use socioeconomic value of crop, and potential usefulness and threat status of relative.
- Germinate 3: Development of a Common Platform to Support the Distribution of Experimental Data on Crop Wild Relatives. Useful in determining the second of the above.
- Re-defining the yam (Dioscorea spp.) core collection using morphological traits. Cleaning up the core.
- “Things are different now”: Farmer perceptions of cultural ecosystem services of traditional rice landscapes in Vietnam and the Philippines. 73 indicators for the contribution of landscapes to culture, aesthetics, and local knowledge.
- A single-nucleotide polymorphism causes smaller grain size and loss of seed shattering during African rice domestication. You want no shattering? You also get smaller seeds. Like it or edit it.
- Digital conservation: An introduction. Brave new world… Special issue of Ambio.
- The Genomic History Of Southeastern Europe. Souther Greek Neolithic farmers not same as other European Neolithic farmers.
- Genomics of a revived breed: Case study of the Belgian campine cattle. Racial impurities are confined to a few farms.
- Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 °C target. We’re doomed.
- Conservation of biodiversity as a strategy for improving human health and well-being. By keeping animals and their nasty diseases away from people, we’re not talking communing with Nature here.
- The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Minimise the interaction.
- Nature’s pulse power: legumes, food security and climate change. Special issue of Journal of Experimental Botany on legumes. Eat up your beans!