Archaeology

May 5, 2017May 4, 2017

Assyria in Gatersleben

I’m not sure if I said here that I visited IPK, the German national genebank, a few weeks ago. I did on Instagram.

Complementary #conservation #genebank #agrobiodiversity #germany

A post shared by Luigi Guarino (@ggguarino) on Apr 14, 2017 at 8:23am PDT

Great facilities, great people, great work: but, though bigger and better resourced than average, in most ways like many other genebanks around the world. Except, that is, for the Assyrian relief in the entrance hall.

Well, the plaster cast of the Assyrian relief anyway. Nobody seemed to know where the original was, but there was general agreement that the copy was there because it depicted plant breeding. Of course, I took that as a challenge, and after a few minutes playing around with Google’s image search feature, I ran it to earth at the Met.

Each register of imagery shows a pair of supernatural figures flanking a stylized “sacred tree.” Further sacred trees can be seen to the left, and similar imagery continued around the room from which this slab came. The tree is thought to represent the prosperity and agricultural abundance of Assyria, and perhaps on one level the state itself. The supernatural figures are protective, and similar to those shown at larger scale throughout the palace. The gesture performed by the bird-headed figures with bucket and cone has been much discussed. One suggestion is that it symbolizes the fertilization of the land through the imagery of artificial date-palm fertilization, in which male date-spathes are used to fertilize female plants. The Assyrian term for the cone, however, seems to be “purifier,” and it is therefore likely that the symbolism has as much or more to do with magical protection.

So, maybe plant breeding, maybe not, but well worth having in the entrance lobby to a plant breeding institute containing a genebank.

But in locating the stela I ran across an article on Mesopotamian agriculture from the Oriental Institute that mentioned something called the Philadelphia Onion Archive.

No way to let that go either, naturally. It turns out that the Philadelphia Onion Archive really does consist of an archive of material on onions, kept in Philadelphia in the unwieldy shape of numerous clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform in the Akkadian language. Fortunately, there’s a translation online. Which means we know how many types of onions were grown during the reign of King Shar-Kali-Sharri, over 4,000 years ago.

And for how many places around the world can we say that even now?

May 1, 2017April 30, 2017

Brainfood: Dope diversity, Potato chips, Conservation costing, Island breeding systems, Indus civilization cereals, Drone phenotyping, Wild rice in Asia, Wild rice & Native Americans, Pearl millet temperature, Climate change & fruit/veg

Cannabis Domestication, Breeding History, Present-day Genetic Diversity, and Future Prospects. The traditional landraces are being contaminated and need urgent collection and evaluation by dedicated professionals.
Cold sweetening diversity in Andean potato germplasm from Argentina. 5 out of 48 Andigena landraces make good chips.
Considering cost alongside the effectiveness of management in evidence-based conservation: A systematic reporting protocol. Here comes the metadata. No excuse now.
Self-compatibility is over-represented on islands. 66% vs 41% in Asteraceae, Brassicaceae and Solanaceae. Any crop wild relatives in the list?
Cereals, calories and change: exploring approaches to quantification in Indus archaeobotany. Millet may not have been as important as is generally thought.
High-Throughput Phenotyping of Sorghum Plant Height Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Its Application to Genomic Prediction Modeling. A near-infrared, green and blue (NIR-GB) camera on a drone gives pretty good results compared to a person with a tape measure, and is much more fun.
Asian wild rice is a hybrid swarm with extensive gene flow and feralization from domesticated rice. No such thing as completely wild Asian rice.
The dispute over wild rice: an investigation of treaty agreements and Ojibwe food sovereignty. Not wild rice at all, but what’s been happening to it might be a violation of the White Pine Treaty with the Ojibwe.
Quantifying pearl millet response to high temperature stress: thresholds, sensitive stages, genetic variability and relative sensitivity of pollen and pistil. The problem is the pistils.
Effect of environmental change on yield and quality of fruits and vegetables: two systematic reviews and projections of possible health effects. Bad for yield, good for nutritional quality.

April 17, 2017April 4, 2017

Brainfood: Insurance value, Forages/invasives, Chenopod crops, Non-descript goats, Holy grapes, Black maize, Wild rice diversity, Cassava seedlings, Knotweed domestication syndrome, Wild potato use, Farmers/researchers, Winged yam diversity, Genes to ecosystems, Wild carrots

The Value of Biodiversity as an Insurance Device. So apparently the “Epstein-Zin-Weil specification of the utility function allows us to disentangle the effects of risk aversion and aversion to fluctuations.” Good to know.
The Invasive Legacy of Forage Grass Introductions into Florida. Sometimes biodiversity is bad for you, Epstein-Zin-Weil specification or not.
Cultigen Chenopods in the Americas: A Hemispherical Perspective. Why did the North American one not do a quinoa?
The potential of landscape genomics approach in the characterization of adaptive genetic diversity in indigenous goat genetic resources: A South African perspective. “[N]on-descript indigenous veld goats” no longer.
Collection and characterization of grapevine genetic resources (Vitis vinifera) in the Holy Land, towards the renewal of ancient winemaking practices. Some of the local varieties could make a decent tipple.
Genetic studies regarding the control of seed pigmentation of an ancient European pointed maize (Zea mays L.) rich in phlobaphenes: the “Nero Spinoso” from the Camonica valley. But do we really want to promote a landrace as a functional food?
Genetic diversity patterns in ex situ collections of Oryza officinalis Wall. ex G. Watt revealed by morphological and microsatellite markers. Malesia separates out from SE Asia, and similarities between PNG and Philippines points to long-distance dispersal by birds. Or germplasm collectors.
Perceptual selection and the unconscious selection of ‘volunteer’ seedlings in clonally propagated crops: an example with African cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) using ethnobotany and population genetics. Occasional seedlings are allowed to survive not so much because they look different, but because they look similar, to existing landraces, even though they may be genetically distinct.
Evolutionary “Bet-Hedgers” under Cultivation: Investigating the Domestication of Erect Knotweed (Polygonum erectum L.) using Growth Experiments. Experimental domestication pretty quickly gets rid of that peskily bet-hedging germination heteromorphism.
Are We Getting Better at Using Wild Potato Species in Light of New Tools? Not until we move on from conserving populations and start documenting individual plants in depth.
Crucible of Crop Diversity: Forging Partnership with Farmer Breeders and Innovators for Higher Climate Resilience. Experience of the Honey Bee Network in bringing together farmers and researchers.
Understanding the genetic diversity and population structure of yam (Dioscorea alata L.) using microsatellite markers. 17 groups among 384 global accessions, reflecting geography, ploidy and morpho-agronomy.
Harnessing diversity from ecosystems to crops to genes. “…currently, approximately 75% of the genetic diversity of crops may have been lost.” I do like that “may.”
Multivariate analysis of morphological diversity among closely related Daucus species and subspecies in Tunisia. The revenge of morphology: D. sahariensis, plus 4 subspecies of D. carota.

April 7, 2017April 7, 2017

Nibbles: Viking dope, Garden survey, Ancient olive press, Proposal writing, Nice figures, Old garden books, Chestnuts, Cannibalism, Saving coffee, Vanilla history, Seed book, Spanish brassica

Vikings got high.
“How can you and your garden help us find out more about the global biodiversity associated with the plants in gardens?” Here’s how.
The oldest olive press in Anatolia.
“The Mistake: Writing a proposal that showcased knowledge rather than addressing the audience’s needs.” Indeed.
The Solution: cool downloads from Gapminder.
The only surviving illustrated Old English herbal. And, from several centuries later, a medieval book on how gardens will save you.
AramcoWorld on my favourite nut.
Cannibalism is a choice.
One kick-ass botanist.
Saving Ethiopia’s coffee forests. Nah, let’s just map the genome.
Vanilla has dark side.
The Profit of the Earth: cool new book on seeds, dark side and all.
Remember my little trip to the Spanish genebank? What they’re doing on brassica.

April 3, 2017April 10, 2017

Brainfood: Banana identification, Donkey domestication, Mouse domestication, African cattle, Pig domestication, Biofuels, Biofortification, Genomics for breeding, Species movement, Crop diversity double, N fixation, Ag commercialization models, Wild beans, Brassica domestication, Teaching biodiversity

Molecular and cytological characterization of the global Musa germplasm collection provides insights into the treasure of banana diversity. 16% of 1500 accessions need taxonomic verification. Could have been much worse.
Why the Donkey Did Not Go South: Disease as a Constraint on the Spread of Equus asinus into Southern Africa. Gap in distribution between Kenya and southern Africa until colonial times probably down to trypanosomiasis.
Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago. Hunter gatherers inadvertently domesticated the mouse.
The genome landscape of indigenous African cattle. Now we know where the genes for heat tolerance and tick resistance can be found, and it’s where you’d think.
Insights into early pig domestication provided by ancient DNA analysis. In northern Europe, around 4000 BC, people started crossing pigs from the south with local wild boars. What were they thinking?
Recent grassland losses are concentrated around U.S. ethanol refineries. The revenge of geography.
Provitamin A biofortification of crop plants: a gold rush with many miners. “One crucial aspect that needs further experimentation is whether β-carotene-fortified crops can improve vitamin A status in the main targets of the biofortification efforts, that is, malnourished adults and children.” Just going to leave that out there.
Genomic innovation for crop improvement. Longer reads needed. Is there no satisfying these gene-jockeys?
Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being. Species movements affect ecosystem functioning and service provision: “The indirect effects of climate change on food webs are also expected to compound the direct effects on crops.”
Feeding the Household, Growing the Business, or Just Showing Off? Farmers’ Motivations for Crop Diversity Choices in Papua New Guinea. Some people grow lots of crops because it’s cool. But why wasn’t this done at the intraspecific level?
To Specialize or Diversify: Agricultural Diversity and Poverty Dynamics in Ethiopia. Forget coolness, crop diversity makes you less poor.
Biogeography of nodulated legumes and their nitrogen-fixing symbionts. Australia is weird.
Plantations, outgrowers and commercial farming in Africa: agricultural commercialisation and implications for agrarian change. They all have their place.
Genomic history of the origin and domestication of common bean unveils its closest sister species. Wild populations from northern Peru and Ecuador are not derived from wild Phaseolus vulgaris which migrated there from Mesoamerica but are actually a different species which predates the evolution of wild common bean.
Genomic inferences of domestication events are corroborated by written records in Brassica rapa. Five genetic groups, with rapini at the base.
Walking and talking the tree of life: Why and how to teach about biodiversity. Forget ranks, try clades.