- Anglo-Saxons may not have dropped spelt as quickly as we thought.
- The history of South Africa’s Kristaldruif grape. And where to find it.
- It was colonization that messed up Ghana’s food security. Boris take note.
- The brotherhood of manouls. They can keep it.
- Alpaca farmers out in the cold.
- CIMMYT annual report highlights the genebank.
Ancient agricultural DNA everywhere
Heady days for ancient DNA researchers. There have been two major papers in the past month looking at the DNA of Neolithic farmers. Back in June, a huge research consortium published “The genetic structure of the world’s first farmers” as a preprint in bioRxiv, with subsequent write-up in Nature. And now a different huge consortium comes out with “Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent,” in Science. That also got widely picked up.
Don’t ask me why two separate research groups need to be working on basically the same problem, in basically the same way. I suppose they’re using somewhat different methods on different material. I really couldn’t tell you whether it would have been better to pool the material, or standardize the methods, or indeed both. Maybe someone out there will tell us. In any case, it’s reassuring, I suppose, that the two studies came to broadly similar conclusions, namely that there were genetic differences among early farmers, and that genetically distinct people from different parts of the Fertile Crescent migrated north into Europe and eastwards further into Asia. Which in turn suggests to some that the origins of agriculture may be described as “federal”:
Different and genetically distinct populations were all engaged in this same general project, albeit exchanging ideas with each or other or sometimes coming up with the same idea independently.
Meanwhile, sequencing of DNA from a 6000-year-old barley from the Dead Sea shows close similarity with varieties still grown in the southern Levant and Egypt. Intriguing to speculate whether a similar study of material from the Zagros Mountains would show a parallel pattern to the human DNA. But will it need a different group of researchers to do it.
Nibbles: African fruits, Old apple, Ancient barley, GRAIN study, Desertification, Biodiversity loss
- ICRAF helps us understand little-understood African fruit trees.
- The apple is pretty well understood, but this one important, 200-year-old tree is dying. Tissue culture to the rescue.
- I see your 200-year-old-tree and I raise you 6000-year-old barley.
- GRAIN takes aim at FTAs.
- Desertification may not be a thing.
- Biodiversity loss is, though, right?
Nibbles: Maize domestication, Seaweed as food, Holy plants, Pre-Columbian Amazon, Pulses, Myanmar rice, Ghana cassava, Chocolate festivities, Tobacco biofuel, Evidence base, Brazilian agrobiodiversity
- Maize domestication video from CONABIO.
- Why has a seaweed never been domesticated?
- Any seaweeds mentioned in the Bible?
- Series of talks on ancient Amazonia.
- Africa needs pulses.
- Myanmar needs salinity tolerant rice.
- 30% of Ghanaian cassavas are improved varieties, but you wouldn’t know it from their names.
- Wait, what, we missed World Chocolate Day?
- Tobacco for airplanes, no warning label required.
- Latest list of conservation interventions that work tackles forests.
- Brazil lists nutritious native species.
Brainfood: Panicum diversity, Colocasia diversity, First farmers, Maize breeding, Soil data, Prunus domestication, Soya minicore
- Evaluation of Genetic Diversity of Proso Millet Germplasm Available in the United States using Simple-Sequence Repeat Markers. Germplasm collection diverse, released cultivars not so much.
- Genetic Diversification and Dispersal of Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott). Most diverse in India, which is origin of W. African material, in contrast to the S. African, which comes from Japan. The Caribbean stuff comes from the Pacific, but the Central American from India.
- The genetic structure of the world’s first farmers. Ancient DNA suggests agriculture arose separately in southern Levant and Iran. Or at least that the first farmers in those regions didn’t speak together much.
- Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately. Crop duration in Africa will decrease faster than you can breed for it.
- Uncertainty in soil data can outweigh climate impact signals in global crop yield simulations. And then there’s the whole soil thing.
- Evolutionary genomics of peach and almond domestication. Separated a long time ago, and fruit diverged before domestication, which occurred separately but in parallel.
- Phenotypic evaluation and genetic dissection of resistance to Phytophthora sojae in the Chinese soybean mini core collection. Some new genes found, and geographic hotspots of resistance too.