- Access and Benefit Sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity and Its Protocol: What Can Some Numbers Tell Us about the Effectiveness of the Regulatory Regime? That not much has happened. Between 1996 and 2015, out of the 14 countries with ABS legislation in force, 2 agreements for commercial researches per year.
- Genetic monitoring of traditional chestnut orchards reveals a complex genetic structure. The diversity in Spain is in the rootstocks.
- Climate change and national crop wild relative conservation planning. Well, for Norway anyway.
- Integrating genetic maps in bambara groundnut [Vigna subterranea (L) Verdc.] and their syntenic relationships among closely related legumes. Synteny to the rescue.
- Stakeholder involvement and the management of animal genetic resources across the world. Breeders’ associations and cooperatives are the key.
- Decline of Jakar sheep population in pastoral communities of Bhutan: A consequence of diminishing utility, alternate income opportunities and increasing challenges. It’s the fault of the caterpillar fungus.
- Origin and phylogenetic status of the local Ashanti Dwarf pig (ADP) of Ghana based on genetic analysis. It’s a bit of a mongrel.
- Genetic analysis identifies the region of origin of smuggled peach palm seeds. Genebank confirms biopiracy.
- Genetic Structure and Selection of a Core Collection for Long Term Conservation of Avocado in Mexico. 36 of 318 accessions recover 80% of total alleles, which seems a bit low.
- Genome sequencing supports a multi-vertex model for Brassiceae species. More than just “triangle of U”.
Brainfood: Arabidopsis refugia, Potato diversity, Palm uses, Coffee phylogeny, Traditional harvesting, Buckwheat trends, Maize double haploids, African cattle, Endophenotype
- On the post-glacial spread of human commensal Arabidopsis thaliana. A bit like Neanderthals.
- Exploration of the genetic diversity of cultivated potato and its wild progenitors (Solanum sect. Petota) with insights into potato domestication and genome evolution. Elite cultivars are a pretty diverse lot.
- Fundamental species traits explain provisioning services of tropical American palms. Bigger, more widespread species are more important to local people. Which means some useful things may be being missed.
- Genotyping-by-sequencing provides the first well-resolved phylogeny for coffee (Coffea) and insights into the evolution of caffeine content in its species: GBS coffee phylogeny and the evolution of caffeine content. Origin of the genus could be Africa. Or Asia. Or the Arabian Peninsula. So that narrows it down.
- A quiet harvest: linkage between ritual, seed selection and the historical use of the finger-bladed knife as a traditional plant breeding tool in Ifugao, Philippines. People kept old harvesting technology because it helped them show due reverence to the rice plant, and select seeds.
- Old Crop, New Society: Persistence and Change of Tartary Buckwheat Farming in Yunnan, China. It’s going down, but won’t disappear. No word on what’s happening to diversity though.
- Tapping the genetic diversity of landraces in allogamous crops with doubled haploid lines: a case study from European flint maize. The things people have to do to make use of landraces.
- Conservation of indigenous cattle genetic resources in Southern Africa’s smallholder areas: turning threats into opportunities — A review. We now the breeds, but not all their characteristics, and how to get the most out of them.
- The Importance of Endophenotypes to Evaluate the Relationship between Genotype and External Phenotype. Oh for pity’s sake, something else to worry about.
Brainfood: Potato changes, Anti-carcinogenic kava, Horizontal barley, Genebank use, Lotus diversity, Rubber soul, CWR breeding, Andean PGR, Distribution modelling
- Genetic diversity of Bolivian wild potato germplasm: changes during ex situ conservation management and comparisons with resampled in situ populations. It’s all a bit of a lottery.
- Traditional preparations of kava (Piper methysticum) inhibit the growth of human colon cancer cells in vitro. Still tastes like crap, though.
- Multiple horizontal transfers of nuclear ribosomal genes between phylogenetically distinct grass lineages. 9 independent instances of non-sexual panicoid introgression into wild barley species.
- Who is sowing our seeds? A systematic review of the use of plant genetic resources in research. Ahem, researchers? Study of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
- Evaluation of Lotus corniculatus L. accessions from different locations at different altitudes reveals phenotypic and genetic diversity. Phenotype could be the same, and genotype still be different.
- De novo hybrid assembly of the rubber tree genome reveals evidence of paleotetraploidy in Hevea species. Which happened before Hevea and Manihot diverged.
- Potential Uses of Wild Germplasms of Grain Legumes for Crop Improvement. “A big international effort is underway with the aim to adapt agriculture to climate change, which includes collecting, protecting and preparing crop wild relatives. Several pulses are among the major targets: common bean, adzuki bean, chickpea, cowpea, faba bean, groundnut, lentil, lima bean, mung bean, pea, pigeonpea, soybean, urd bean and vetch [197,198]. The information generated and systematized from this project certainly will be a unique source of information and materials facing the current and futures challenges for agriculture in the context of crop wild relatives use.” How sweet.
- Assessing the Benefits of Andean Crop Diversity on Farmers’ Livelihood: Insights from a Development Programme in Bolivia and Peru. Private benefits can incentivize public ones.
- Modelling of species distributions, range dynamics and communities under imperfect detection: advances, challenges and opportunities. Beyond mere presence.
Brainfood: Cotton domestication, Niche modelling, Finger millet double, Bird flu, Lake Chad millet, USDA Ethiopian sorghum, Phast phenotyping, Corchorus genomes
- Genome-wide divergence, haplotype distribution and population demographic histories for Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense as revealed by genome-anchored SNPs. Parallel domestication.
- Integrating species distribution modelling into decision-making to inform conservation actions. You need really nice maps.
- Establishing a core collection of finger millet (Eleusine coracana [L.] Gaertn.) ex situ holdings of the Ethiopian genebank. Particularly interesting for the discussion of what to do with the core, now that it exists.
- Characterization of Some Ex Situ Conserved Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana (L.)) Germplasm Accessions in Sri Lanka. Unlike this one.
- Global mapping of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 and H5Nx clade 2.3.4.4 viruses with spatial cross-validation. It’s the intensively raised chickens.
- Unexpected pattern of pearl millet genetic diversity among ethno-linguistic groups in the Lake Chad Basin. Different linguistic groups have genetically distinct pearl millet, but only on the western side of the lake.
- Genomic characterization of a core set of the USDA-NPGS Ethiopian sorghum germplasm collection: implications for germplasm conservation, evaluation, and utilization in crop improvement. 7,217 accessions from Ethiopia, 374 in the core subset, representing 11 highly admixed and very diverse populations.
- High-throughput phenotyping and QTL mapping reveals the genetic architecture of maize plant growth. Brave new world.
- Comparative genomics of two jute species and insight into fibre biogenesis. There are a few but interesting genetic differences between the 2 species of Corchorus cultivated for fibre. No word on the differences between fibre and vegetable varieties, if any.
Brainfood: Managing seeds, Botanical gardens, Potato genomics, Marketing Amazonian fruits, Camel diversity, Potato mineral diversity, Turkish cats, Göbekli Tepe, Kuznets curve
- SeedUSoon: A New Software Program to Improve Seed Stock Management and Plant Line Exchanges between Research Laboratories. Great name.
- Building a Global System for the conservation and use of all plant diversity. Botanical gardens learning from crop genebanks?
- Understanding potato with the help of genomics. Crop genebank learning from genomics.
- What are the socioeconomic implications of the value chain of biodiversity products? A case study in Northeastern Brazil. Two Amazonian fruits, very different markets.
- Weak Genetic Structure in Northern African Dromedary Camels Reflects Their Unique Evolutionary History. Severe bottlenecks and long-distance movement makes for quite a genetic mess.
- Genetic variation for tuber mineral concentrations in accessions of the Commonwealth Potato Collection. Is considerable, and might be useful in breeding. I’m shocked.
- The Domestic Livestock Resources of Turkey: Social Aspects, Genetic Resources and Conservation of Companion Animal Cats (Felis Catus). The nondescript cats are not in danger.
- Feasting, Social Complexity, and the Emergence of the Early Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia: A View from Göbekli Tepe. Agriculture as a result of religious feasting. No word on the role of cats.
- Economic Development and Forest Cover: Evidence from Satellite Data. More money = more deforestation.