- First off — a pretty big deal. Taylor & Francis have made a bunch of papers related to sustainable agriculture freely available, but only until the end of December. Happy whatever holiday won’t offend you.
- Twentieth-century changes in the genetic composition of Swedish field pea metapopulations. Metapopulations have become isolated populations. In genebanks.
- Effects of different irrigation systems on the biodiversity of species-rich hay meadows. Change from the traditional irrigation system has affected biodiversity levels, but not a huge amount.
- Research regarding the use of wheat biodiversity for obtaining some cereal-based fermented mashes. Let’s go straight to what we need to know here: the best mash come from spelt wheat. Oh, to be the one doing the organoleptic characterization.
- Cultivation and high capitalization of medicinal and aromatic plants in the Romanian-Bulgarian cross-border region. If you’re really interested, there’s a database that brings it all together.
- Crop biodiversity, productivity and production risk: Panel data micro-evidence from Ethiopia. More crops = more production. But the devil is in the details, I suspect.
- Identification of gaps in pearl millet germplasm from East and Southern Africa conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. We used to do this sort of thing by hand in my day.
- At3g08030 transcript: a molecular marker of seed ageing. This mRNA could predict germination performance of a dry seed lot across species. Good for genebanks?
- Assembling a core collection from the flax world collection maintained by Plant Gene Resources of Canada. You don’t hear much about core collections these days, why is that?
Brainfood: Pig genome, Turkey genome, Big genomes, Maize genome, Potato improvement, Mango diversity, Coconut germination
- Analyses of pig genomes provide insight into porcine demography and evolution. More wild diversity in Asia, suggesting origin there, followed by migration to Europe. Separate domestication in SE Asia and Europe, followed by geneflow.
- Whole genome SNP discovery and analysis of genetic diversity in Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Lot less diverse than chicken. Or pig. Commercial breed even less diverse.
- Why size really matters when sequencing plant genomes. We must not shy away from the big genomes.
- QTL mapping in three tropical maize populations reveals a set of constitutive and adaptive genomic regions for drought tolerance. Eureka!
- Crops that feed the world 8: Potato: are the trends of increased global production sustainable? Maybe. But can you guess what will be needed? Nice review of genebank holdings and improvement strategies and aims.
- Physico-chemical Characterization of Unexploited Mango Diversity in Sub-mountane Zone of Northern India. 28 varieties in the Punjab, with all kinds of different uses.
- Germination Rate is the Significant Characteristic Determining Coconut Palm Diversity. Natural and artificial selection associated with different rates of germination (as well as other phenotypic traits of course).
Brainfood: Spanish terraces, Flower patches, Population ecology, Maize germplasm use, Seed info system, Maize and CC, Medicago predation, Species richness prediction, Rice salt-tolerance
- The genesis of irrigated terraces in al-Andalus. A geoarchaeological perspective on intensive agriculture in semi-arid environments (Ricote, Murcia, Spain). They were built very early on, on a specific soil type, by first burning the vegetation and then essentially inverting the soil profile.
- Creating patches of native flowers facilitates crop pollination in large agricultural fields: mango as a case study. Sweet.
- The ecology of plant populations: their dynamics, interactions and evolution. A whole special issue. Most intriguing is perhaps review of plant-pollinator interactions on the Galapagos. All very important for in situ conservation of crop wild relatives.
- Diversity in global maize germplasm: Characterization and utilization. Three priorities: phenotyping, phenotyping, phenotyping.
- Phytotracker, an information management system for easy recording and tracking of plants, seeds and plasmids. They could have used GRIN-Global, but I guess that doesn’t track plasmids.
- Increasing influence of heat stress on French maize yields from the 1960s to the 2030s. Any day with maximum temperature above 32°C is bad, and their recent increase has led to yield stagnation. They are going to increase further, which means that the French are going to have to find a 12% increase in base yields by 2035 or eat less maize. Do they in fact eat any maize now? What countries are now like what France will be like in 2035?
- Combined impact of multiple exotic herbivores on different life stages of an endangered plant endemism, Medicago citrina. IUCN says it’s endangered. Rabbits, mice and rats are important parts of the problem.
- Estimating species richness: still a long way off!. Bummer.
- New allelic variants found in key rice salt-tolerance genes: an association study. A couple possibly interesting mutations identified by EcoTILLING bunch of IRRI accessions. We shall see if anything comes of them. Actually, how will we find out if something does? I hope the info will go back into the IRRI genebank documentation system.
Brainfood: Sierra Leone rice, Bean breeding, Cacao geographic diversity, Red fleshed apples, Species richness & productivity, African maize diversity, Human expansion, Barley gaps, Wild coffee and CC, Acacia and CC, Genetic erosion
- Analysis of genetic diversity in farmers’ rice varieties in Sierra Leone using morphological and AFLP markers. Still a lot of diversity in traditional rice after the war, both among and within landraces, mostly among, organized regionally, and recognized by local names.
- Simultaneous selection for resistance to five bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases in three Andean × Middle American inter-gene pool common bean populations. Thanks goodness for multiple independent domestication events. And genebanks.
- Present Spatial Diversity Patterns of Theobroma cacao L. in the Neotropics Reflect Genetic Differentiation in Pleistocene Refugia Followed by Human-Influenced Dispersal. So need to collect in areas at the margins or just outside the refugia if you want high diversity. But of course that may already be ex situ. But wait, didn’t you just do the analysis based on the provenance of ex situ holdings?
- An ancient duplication of apple MYB transcription factors is responsible for novel red fruit-flesh phenotypes. The whole genome got duplicated during evolution of the apple and the red flesh phenotype is controlled by loci in both copies, but in different ways.
- What is the form of the productivity–animal-species-richness relationship? A critical review and meta-analysis. Positive.
- Spatial Structure and Climatic Adaptation in African Maize Revealed by Surveying SNP Diversity in Relation to Global Breeding and Landrace Panels. Distinct Sahelian, Western and Eastern clusters. Some SNPs associated with high temperatures.
- MtDNA analysis of global populations support that major population expansions began before Neolithic Time. Humans needed good weather to thrive, not agriculture.
- Genetic gap analysis of wild Hordeum taxa. Argentina?
- The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Arabica Coffee (Coffea arabica): Predicting Future Trends and Identifying Priorities. Generally very bad to disastrous, but some “core localities” will be ok, and therefore could be used for in situ conservation. Interestingly, genebank accession locality data not used.
- The genus Acacia (Fabaceae) in East Africa: distribution, diversity and the protected area network. No such luck for Acacia, I’m afraid.
- Monocropping Cultures into Ruin: The Loss of Food Varieties and Cultural Diversity. Are you sure you want to know what a sociologist and a political scientist have to say on the matter?
Brainfood: Chinese fermented fish, Yeast diversity, Wild papayas, Milpa nutrition, Rare wild sunflower, Albanian pomegranate, Wheat mixtures, Climate change yield decline
- Chemical and microbial properties of Chinese traditional low-salt fermented whole fish product Suan yu. “The values of Enterobacteria and Pseudomonads were under the detection limits in six different brands” is about the best that can be said for it.
- Tapping into yeast diversity. Some new, diverse wild lineages in China may tell us important things about yeast ecology, evolution and domestication.
- Genome size variation among sex types in dioecious and trioecious Caricaceae species. Lots of retrotransposons, and sex chromosomes in some species.
- The Archaic Diet in Mesoamerica: Incentive for Milpa Development and Species Domestication. The diet preceded the crops.
- Genetic diversity and population structure in the rare Algodones sunflower (Helianthus niveus ssp. tephrodes). Low diversity overall, but some populations quite distinct. Which tells you about how to conserve it.
- Albania, the domestication country for pomegranate (Punica granatum L.). Well, maybe.
- Mixtures of genetically modified wheat lines outperform monocultures. Two transgenes are better than one.
- Climate change impacts on crop productivity in Africa and South Asia. -8% overall. The surprise? Sorghum declines more than maize in Africa, less in S Asia.