Category: Breeding

• A global overview of cassava genetic diversity. The African germplasm is different from the Latin American, but not by that much.
• Genetic variability in landraces populations and the risk to lose genetic variation. The example of landrace ‘Kyperounda’ and its implications for ex situ conservation. Better genetically to conserve landraces as sub-lines. But financially?
• Impact of merging commercial breeding lines on the genetic diversity of Landrace pigs. Above goes for pigs too.
• Selection and Molecular Characterization of Soybeans with High Oleic Acid from Plant Germplasm of Genebank. 3 accessions have interesting variants in the relevant gene.
• Origin and domestication of Cucurbitaceae crops: insights from phylogenies, genomics and archaeology. Lots of different paths to domestication, but all involve loss of flesh bitterness, one way or another.
• Changing Carrot Color: Insertions in DcMYB7 Alter the Regulation of Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Modification. How the carrot lost its purple.
• A 3,000-year-old Egyptian emmer wheat genome reveals dispersal and domestication history. Most closely resembles modern material from Turkey, Oman and India.
• TeoNAM: A Nested Association Mapping Population for Domestication and Agronomic Trait Analysis in Maize. With added teosinte goodness.
• Adaptive phenotypic divergence in an annual grass differs across biotic contexts. The rhizosphere affects adaptation of teosinte along an altitudinal gradient. We’ll need a Nested Association Mapping Population for that too now, no doubt.
• Population genetics assessment model reveals priority protection of genetic resources in native pig breeds in China. Most breeds have low diversity; Tibetan pigs are an exception.
• A brief history of the forty-five years of the E’AppleBP apple breeding program in Brazil. 27 new varieties seems like pretty good going.
• Testing the Various Pathways Linking Forest Cover to Dietary Diversity in Tropical Landscapes. Sometimes there’s a direct pathway (e.g., consumption of forest food), sometimes an income pathway (income from forest products used to purchase food from markets), and sometimes an agroecological pathway (forests and trees sustaining farm production). And sometimes there isn’t.
• Evolutionary diversity is associated with wood productivity in Amazonian forests. “…greater phylogenetic diversity translates into higher levels of ecosystem function.” No word on its effect on diets.
• Anatomy and resilience of the global production ecosystem. Plenty of words on its effect on diets.