- High-temperature stress during drying improves subsequent rice (Oryza sativa L.) seed longevity. Up to 45°C, because it triggers a stress protection mechanism.
- Agricultural diversification and dietary diversity: A feminist political ecology of the everyday experiences of landless and smallholder households in northern Ghana. Production diversity at the farm level is necessary for dietary diversity, but not sufficient.
- Critical review of the emerging research evidence on agricultural biodiversity, diet diversity, and nutritional status in low- and middle-income countries. Production diversity at the farm level has a small but consistent positive association with dietary diversity.
- Exploiting Genetic Diversity for Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change: A Case of Finger Millet in East Africa. Some varieties are good everywhere, others only good in some places.
- Ex situ conservation of plant diversity in the world’s botanic gardens. A third of all known plants, and half of endangered ones, are to be found in botanic gardens, but the tropics are under-represented.
- Prebreeding Using Wild Species for Genetic Enhancement of Grain Legumes at ICRISAT. It’s a drag, but someone has to do it.
- Wide crosses of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) reveal good disease resistance, yield stability, and industrial quality across Mediterranean sites. Not such a drag after all.
- Quantifying airborne dispersal routes of pathogens over continents to safeguard global wheat supply. Incredibly fancy maths says Yemen is the key.
- Demographic history, selection and functional diversity of the canine genome. There’s a lot here, in particular the genes that were involved in early phenotypic differentiation from wolves, and evidence of continuous geneflow with wilds canids. But the thing that really got me is that humans and dogs show parallel evolution in the ability to process complex carbohydrates, associated with agriculture.
- Probabilistic viability calculations for cryopreserving vegetatively propagated collections in genebanks. One Excel spreadsheet to rule all cryo.
- Biodiversity effects in the wild are common and as strong as key drivers of productivity. Meta-analysis of observations in nature supports results of experimental work.
- Biodiversity promotes primary productivity and growing season lengthening at the landscape scale. “…a large species pool is important for adaption to climate change.” An example of the above.
- Considering connections between Hollywood and biodiversity conservation. Conservationists need to get out more.
Brainfood: Pennisetum genome, Dioscorea genome, CBS timeline, Global taro, Science storytelling, Fragmented populations, Beet diversity, Potato diversity, Norwegian chickens, Med holidays, ABS, Jatropha diversity, Better olive oil
- Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments. Of course it does. Lots of genes for natural wax proteins may be part of the answer.
- Genome sequencing of the staple food crop white Guinea yam enables the development of a molecular marker for sex determination. Which should make breeding more efficient.
- Cassava brown streak disease: historical timeline, current knowledge and future prospects. Re-emergence drives intense scientific scrutiny, and maybe some solutions, including 25 best-bet clones from the region which show foliar symptoms but no tuber necrosis.
- Adapting clonally propagated crops to climatic changes: a global approach for taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott). People need taro diversity.
- Opinion: Finding the plot in science storytelling in hopes of enhancing science communication. See all of the above.
- Call for a Paradigm Shift in the Genetic Management of Fragmented Populations. Mix it up!
- How scattered trees matter for biodiversity conservation in active pastures. By being diverse, and helping in forest recovery. Someone should mash up with the previous.
- Insights into the genetic relationships among plants of Beta section Beta using SNP markers. Fancy markers say same thing as less fancy markers.
- Levels of Intra-Specific AFLP diversity in Tuber-Bearing Potato Species with Different Breeding Systems and Ploidy Levels. One plant is enough for self-compatible species.
- Genetic diversity in five chicken lines from the Norwegian live poultry gene bank. Not much, globally speaking. But that’s not the whole point.
- Is It Still Necessary to Continue to Collect Crop Genetic Resources in the Mediterranean Area? A Case Study in Catalonia. Yes.
- Beyond access and benefit-sharing : lessons from the emergence and application of the principle of fair and equitable benefit-sharing in agrobiodiversity governance. It’s not yet working, maybe because it’s too complicated.
- Genetic Tracing of Jatropha curcas L. from Its Mesoamerican Origin to the World. Now we know where to go look for fixes to the low productivity problem of African and Asian material, which is all derived from a couple of accessions.
- Exploration of genetic resources to improve the functional quality of virgin olive oil. We need data on phenolic composition.
Brainfood: Eggplant germplasm, CC threat, Impact metrics, Drought & seeds, Burundi cattle, Wild chickpea, Banana collecting, Bambara groundnut diversity, CIP cryo, USA PGR policy, Australian forages, ILRI seed testing, Nepal intensification, Maize and CC
- World Vegetable Center Eggplant Collection: Origin, Composition, Seed Dissemination and Utilization in Breeding. 3,200 accessions from 90 countries, covering all 3 cultivated species, but not enough wild relatives.
- An integrated framework to identify wildlife populations under threat from climate change. Need to know about landscape connectivity, and genomic data would be useful too.
- Research impact: a narrative review. There are lots of methods, and the indirect ones are sometimes the best.
- Orthodox seeds and resurrection plants: two of a kind? Resurrection plants have reactivated the ancient seed drought tolerance program in vegetative tissues.
- Effect of genetic European taurine ancestry on milk yield of Ankole-Holstein crossbred dairy cattle in mixed smallholders system of Burundi highlands. European ancestry good for milk yield.
- First insights into the biochemical and molecular response to cold stress in Cicer microphyllum, a crop wild relative of chickpea (Cicer arietinum). High altitude Himalayan species found to have frost tolerance.
- Banana Collecting Mission in the Autonomous Region Of Bougainville (AROB), Papua New Guinea. 13 days, 61 accessions. Hard work.
- Morphological Characterisation of Selected African Accessions of Bambara Groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.). 3 out of 300 out of 1973 have high yield potential. Hard work.
- A large-scale viability assessment of the potato cryobank at the International Potato Center (CIP). They’re getting better at it. Hard work.
- Deep Seeded Problems: A Look At Seed Bank Regulations. The USA should engage internationally on crop diversity conservation. Hard work.
- Australian Pastures Genebank – Temperate Species Regeneration. Hard work.
- Medium-term seed storage of 50 genera of forage legumes and evidence-based genebank monitoring intervals. Hard seeds are hard work.
- Agricultural Land Use Intensity and Determinants in Different Agroecological Regions in Central Nepal Himalaya. Location, location, location.
- Maize Diversity and Climate Change. To investigate the local adaptation of landraces, which you need for adaptation to climate change, you need the synergy that comes from genomics and phenomics in coordinated fashion.
GPGR4 busy distracting genebanks in Giessen
The 4th International Symposium on Genomics of Plant Genetic Resources is off and running in Giessen, Germany, with a packed programme of cool examples of the application of the latest gizmos and fancy maths to the conservation and use of crop diversity. And yes, there’s a hashtag. As ever, if you’re there, and would like to blog the proceedings for us, the door is open, drop us a line.
Brainfood: DNA barcoding, Extremophiles, Chinese wild walnut, Sheep breeders, Argentinian beans, Biobanks QMS, E African seed systems, Apulian vines, People & diversity, Ancient farmers
- Identification of zucchini varieties in commercial food products by DNA typing. You can trace zucchini varieties in food products despite various kinds of processing.
- Anaerobic microorganisms in astrobiological analogue environments: from field site to culture collection. Practicing to collect genetic resources on Mars.
- Genetic diversity and population structure in the narrow endemic Chinese walnut Juglans hopeiensis Hu: implications for conservation. It’s in trouble.
- Do traditional sheep breeders perform conscious selection? An example from a participatory breeding program of Morada Nova sheep. Breeders of purebreds use different criteria to those of crossbreds.
- Characterization of common bean wild populations for their in situ conservation in Northwestern Argentina. Some populations should be conserved because they’re pure wild, the rest because they’re not pure wild.
- Quality Management System for Research Biobanks: a Tool to Incentivize Public-Private Partnerships. ISO developing a QMS specifically for biobanks. Full text in Google Books.
- Cryopreservation of fruit germplasm. Elements of a strategy for Germany.
- Implications of Seed Policies for On-Farm Agro-Biodiversity in Ethiopia and Uganda. 117 provisions in 21 national seed policies in coded for implications for availability and accessibility of improved, quality-controlled and genetically diverse local seed in both the formal and informal seed systems. Ok, now what?
- Measuring the financial sustainability of vine landraces for better conservation programmes of Mediterranean agro-biodiversity. Landraces are not worth it, because of low yields.
- Traditional People, Collectors of Diversity. ‘Nuff said.
- Changes in human skull morphology across the agricultural transition are consistent with softer diets in preindustrial farming groups. Cheese changed your skull shape.