- Rice, beans and trade crops on the early maritime Silk Route in Southeast Asia. At trade crossroads, crops had to audition for inclusion in the local menu.
- Cryopreservation of somatic embryos for avocado germplasm conservation. Still needs work.
- Soil fertility, crop biodiversity, and farmers’ revenues: Evidence from Italy. Diverse farms are more profitable, and can make up for poor soils.
- Native and Non-Native Sheep Breed Differences in Canestrato Pugliese Cheese Quality: a Resource for a Sustainable Pastoral System. Traditional local cheese is better when made with milk from traditional local breeds.
- Agrobiodiversity conservation enhances food security in subsistence-based farming systems of Eastern Kenya. But correlation is not causation.
- Estimating demand for perennial pigeon pea in Malawi using choice experiments. It won’t be liked everywhere.
- Genome-wide analysis highlights genetic dilution in Algerian sheep. Two of the 7 local breeds studied are in trouble due to uncontrolled breeding with a third, but may be doing better in neighbouring countries.
- Multicriteria optimization to evaluate the performance of Ocimum basilicum L. varieties. Fancy maths allows you to pick the best basil variety out of 8.
- The challenges of maintaining a collection of wild sunflower (Helianthus) species. Are many and varied…
Brainfood: Lentil diversity, Cacao diversity, Larch distribution, Tea diversity, Salmon breeding, Ethiopian sorghum, Brassica differentiation, Biodiversity info, Human footprint
- Genetic Diversity of Cultivated Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) and Its Relation to the World’s Agro-ecological Zones. 352 accessions, 54 countries, 3 agro-ecological groups (South Asia, Mediterranean, N temperate) in USDA collection.
- Association mapping of seed and disease resistance traits in Theobroma cacao L. 6 and 1 markers, respectively, based on 483 unique trees in the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad (ICGT).
- Historic translocations of European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) genetic resources across Europe – A review from the 17th until the mid-20th century. Humans have moved material to areas outside its native distribution, and have mixed up genetically distinct populations in some places.
- Insights into the Genetic Relationships and Breeding Patterns of the African Tea Germplasm (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) Based on nSSR Markers and cpDNA Sequences. African material groups according to where it was bred.
- First the seed, next the smolt? Will salmon farmers learn the right lessons from plant biotechnology? I bet not.
- Geographic patterns of phenotypic diversity in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) landraces from North Eastern Ethiopia. There aren’t any. Patterns, that is.
- Subgenome parallel selection is associated with morphotype diversification and convergent crop domestication in Brassica rapa and Brassica oleracea. Similar heading and tuberous morphotypes in the two species are due to parallel selection on genes that diverged after duplication event.
- Assessing the Cost of Global Biodiversity and Conservation Knowledge. Golly, it’s expensive!
- Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation. Human footprint hasn’t increased by as much as might be feared, but still extends over 75% of world’s land surface. Let the mashing up with crop wild relatives hotspots begin!
Nibbles: Fundament edition
- Badass sheep genomes sequenced.
- FAO assesses drylands.
- Sun shines on enkir again.
- Beans good for anemia. Keep you regular too.
- Jacksy‘s the next breadfruit.
- De-extinction is no back door to conservation.
Brainfood: Med diet, Rice relatives, Local breeds, NGS, Extremophiles, Farmers’ rights, Wild foods
- Prototypical versus contemporary Mediterranean Diet. They’re basically the same.
- Development of Oryza sativa L. by Oryza punctata Kotschy ex Steud. monosomic addition lines with high value traits by interspecific hybridization. A very distant relative finally succumbs.
- Local breeds – rural heritage or new market opportunities? Colliding views on the conservation and sustainable use of landraces. Apparently, both is not an answer. At least in Finland.
- Exploring Genetic Diversity in Plants Using High-Throughput Sequencing Techniques. No excuse now.
- Extremophyte adaptations to salt and water deficit stress. Any crop wild relatives, though?
- Seed wars and farmers’ rights: comparative perspectives from Brazil and India. Stewardship vs ownership.
- Quantifying the economic contribution of wild food harvests to rural livelihoods: A global-comparative analysis. Three quarters of rural families use wild foods, but their contribution to income averages only 4%. Must be the nutrition, I guess.
Nibbles: Agroecology, Seaweed, Groundnut genomes, Roman food, Nature
- It’s not the science, stupid.
- More kelp, sir?
- New genome promises
world dominationnon-allergenic peanut. - The diet of Roman soldiers in Glasgow could have been worse. But did they have take-out?
- There is no more Nature, capital N.