- A Genome-Wide Association Study on the Seedless Phenotype in Banana (Musa spp.) Reveals the Potential of a Selected Panel to Detect Candidate Genes in a Vegetatively Propagated Crop. One strong candidate gene, from 6 possible regions. And here’s the light version.
- Yeast culture collections in the twenty-first century: New opportunities and challenges. Pretty much the same as plant genebanks.
- Genetic variation in sorghum as revealed by phenotypic and SSR markers: implications for combining ability and heterosis for grain yield. Possible parents for hybrids identified.
- Actionable knowledge for ecological intensification of agriculture. Look at the landscape, articulate trade-offs and don’t forget the social dynamics.
- Taxonomic and functional diversity in Mediterranean pastures: Insights on the biodiversity–productivity trade-off. Somebody mention trade-offs?
- Are the major imperatives of food security missing in ecosystem services research? Pretty much.
- Reproductive trade-offs in extant hunter-gatherers suggest adaptive mechanism for the Neolithic expansion. Agriculture got you laid, but then killed you.
- High carbon and biodiversity costs from converting Africa’s wet savannahs to cropland. Bad idea all round.
Brainfood: Old chestnuts, Seed networks, Seed health, Soybean GWAS, Quinoa ABS, Taro breeding
- Mapping the Genetic Diversity of Castanea sativa: Exploiting Spatial Analysis for Biogeography and Conservation Studies. Mapping genetic data is both fun and instructive.
- Effects of farmer social status and plant biocultural value on seed circulation networks in Vanuatu. Big Men control Important Plants.
- Diagnostics of Seed-Borne Plant Pathogens for Safe Introduction and Healthy Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources. Genebanks need seed health labs.
- Characterization of Disease Resistance Loci in the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection using Genome-wide Associations. Phenotypic data in GRIN meets SNP data, hilarity ensues.
- The global expansion of quinoa: trends and limits. From 8 to 75 countries in 35 years. But need new arrangements for access and benefit sharing for genetic resources.
- Evaluation of Vegetative Growth, Yield and Quality Related Traits in Taro (Colocasia esculenta [L.] Schott). A lot of the characters you want to improve are strongly heritable.
Brainfood: Sesame diversity, Teff & drought, Semen bank, Forest genomic monitoring, Sahiwal cattle status, Genomic prediction, Ecuadorian homegardens, Spinach association mapping, ICRISAT pigeonpea & pearl millet, Women & milpa, African rice at AfricaRice, Bacteria helping wheat
- Analysis of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Sesame Accessions from Africa and Asia as Major Centers of Its Cultivation. Strong geographic structure, and more diversity in Asia than Africa.
- Performance of Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] Genotypes for Yield and Yield Components Under Drought-Stressed and Non-Stressed Conditions. Out of 144 genotypes, 15 were good in ideal conditions, 8 under stress, and none, alas, in both cases.
- Genome resource banks pay conservation dividends. Banked semen from “genetically valuable” individuals used to slightly raise diversity in captive populations. Of black-footed ferrets.
- Conservation and Monitoring of Tree Genetic Resources in Temperate Forests. Theory.
- Logging by selective extraction of best trees: Does it change patterns of genetic diversity? The case of Nothofagus pumilio. Praxis: maybe.
- Population structure and demographic trends of the registered Sahiwal cattle in Kenya. It’s losing diversity, so Something Must Be Done.
- Genomic Prediction of Gene Bank Wheat Landraces. It’s not perfect, but not bad either.
- Plant diversity and ecosystem services in Amazonian homegardens of Ecuador. Ethnicity is the stongest determinant of floristic composition.
- Association mapping of leaf traits in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.). “Five, seven and 14 SNPs were identified to be associated with surface texture, edge shape and petiole colour, respectively.”
- Pre-breeding to expand primary genepool through introgression of genes from wild Cajanus species for pigeonpea improvement. Even the tertiary genepool is interesting.
- Characterization and genetic potential of African pearl millet named landraces conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. 5 agronomic clusters, each with good stuff, but different good stuff.
- The participation of farm women in the milpa system of the Yucatán, Mexico. …is minimal.
- Screening African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for tolerance to abiotic stresses: I. Fe toxicity. 3 out of 2000!
- Alleviation of salt stress by halotolerant and halophilic plant growth-promoting bacteria in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Not by a huge amount. For one wheat variety. In hydroponics.
Brainfood: Lupine seeds, Bangladeshi rice, Biscay anchovy, Sweet cassava, Ancient vetches, Salty adzuki, Maroon crops, Mungbean cores, Cassava genome
- Evaluation of thermal, chemical, and mechanical seed scarification methods for 4 Great Basin lupine species. They all need different things.
- Exploring novel genetic sources of salinity tolerance in rice through molecular and physiological characterization. A lot of salt-tolerant Bangladeshi landraces cluster together in an aromatic group close to japonica.
- No loss of genetic diversity in the exploited and recently collapsed population of Bay of Biscay anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus L.). Effective population size has remained steady, irrespective of census population size.
- Molecular characterization of accessions of a rare genetic resource: sugary cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) from Brazilian Amazon. Two distinct genetic groups.
- Presence of vetches (Vicia spp.) in agricultural and wild floras of ancient Europe. One of the proto-IndoEuropean roots for the collective name of these things translates as “avoid”.
- Salt tolerance in wild relatives of adzuki bean, Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi et Ohashi. Two crossable wild relatives had different salt tolerance mechanisms.
- The ‘Botanical Gardens of the Dispossessed’ revisited: richness and significance of Old World crops grown by Suriname Maroons. Some crops are only used in rituals now. But even that’s pretty cool, and better than nothing.
- The AVRDC–The World Vegetable Center mungbean (Vigna radiata) core and mini core collections. 1481 (20% of total) accessions chosen by geography and phenotype, then 289 by SSRs.
- Sequencing wild and cultivated cassava and related species reveals extensive interspecific hybridization and genetic diversity. And you can also use the results for rubber!
Brainfood: Bean drought, Tree ranges, Lao rice landrace, Japanese wheat core, Japanese rice quality, Brassica diversity, Prosopis variety, Teff diversity, Agroecosystem diversity & resilience, Grassland spp adaptation
- Physiological traits associated with drought resistance in Andean and Mesoamerican genotypes of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). Maybe more common in the Mesoamerican genepool, and associated with pod harvest index.
- Estimating potential range and hence climatic adaptability in selected tree species. It’s better if you have trial results.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of ‘Khao Kai Noi’, a Lao rice (Oryza sativa L.) landrace, revealed by microsatellite DNA markers. More variation between than within accessions of same landrace, three genetic groups, and a possible origin in Vietnam.
- Characterization of a mini core collection of Japanese wheat varieties using single-nucleotide polymorphisms generated by genotyping-by-sequencing. Core collection of 96 accessions based on passport and pedigree data turns out to reflect geography and breeding history.
- Variation in cooking and eating quality traits in Japanese rice germplasm accessions. Mainly down to one gene.
- Population genomic analysis reveals differential evolutionary histories and patterns of diversity across subgenomes and subpopulations of Brassica napus L. Spring (SP), winter Europe (WE), and winter Asia (WA) groups, enriched genetic diversity within the WA group, different geographic origins for the C (WE) and A (WA) subgenomes.
- Molecular markers to distinguish ‘Thar Shoba’, a variety of khejri [Prosopis cineraria (L.) Druce], from trees in natural populations. Since the thing has a great morphological marker in being spineless, I don’t really see the point of going all molecular on it, but anyway.
- Assessment of the genetic relationship of tef (Eragrostis tef) genotypes using SSR markers. Molecular markers confirm distinctness of agronomically distinct varieties.
- Linkage between crop diversity and agro-ecosystem resilience: Nonmonotonic agricultural response under alternate regimes. Crop diversity increases productivity during normal conditions, decreases it in adverse conditions, increases the likelihood of staving off an adverse regime.
- Genetic differentiation and regional adaptation among seed origins used for grassland restoration: lessons from a multispecies transplant experiment. Local is best. At least in Germany.