- 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.
Nibbles: Potato/banana, European landrace project, GCARD2, Ankole in Uganda, Crowdsourcing gadgets, Cacao renewal, African food, Australian beans
- BBC pounces on CCAFS report previously trumpeted by Bioversity. Bottom line: adaptation may mean changing crops. Bottom bottom line: Will they have enough diversity?
- PGR Secure newsletter is out.
- GCARD2 rumbles on.
- The ankole cow is threatened. What, still?
- Tracking ash dieback. And since we’re talking gadgets…
- Old cacao trees being replaced in Nigeria. No word on what’s happening to the diversity they represent. Maybe it’s ex situ already? Maybe it’s not significant? I dunno, I would just like to be told.
- Slow Food documents African foods. Thankfully no ugali.
- Aussies put together cool bean collection.
Brainfood: Pedodiversity, Rice and CC, Bean domestication, Cassava mealybug, Grape relationships, Habitat conservation, Extinction and CC, Local provenance, Speciation, Breeding for climate change, Melon diversity, Eucalypt mating, Diverse croppping systems
- Archive and refugia of soil organisms: applying a pedodiversity framework for the conservation of biological and non-biological heritages. They want to set up a network of soil reserves. To conserve the likes of dung beetles, among other things (see last week’s Brainfood). Someone will no doubt mash this up with nature reserves and other protected areas in due course.
- Climate warming over the past three decades has shortened rice growth duration in China and cultivar shifts have further accelerated the process for late rice. One degree increase in temperature translates to about a 4 day shortening of growth period. But the problem would not be so bad if short-duration cultivars were not being increasingly used. No, I don’t fully get it either, but it seems interesting.
- Multiple origins of the determinate growth habit in domesticated common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). The gene in question, part of the domestication syndrome, has been messed about in a variety of distinct and independent ways.
- The Cassava Mealybug (Phenacoccus manihoti) in Asia: First Records, Potential Distribution, and an Identification Key. Bad news for “the southern end of Karnataka in India, the eastern end of the Ninh Thuan province in Vietnam, and in most of West Timor in Indonesia.” No resistance. Yet.
- Genetic relationship between Chinese wild Vitis species and American and European Cultivars based on ISSR markers. It is limited. That goes for the wilds too.
- Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem service supply, biodiversity, and habitat conservation status in Europe. What’s good for the environment is good for the environment. Or if you prefer the non-smartass version, get it from the horse’s mouth…
- Development of best practices for ex situ conservation of radish germplasm in the context of the crop genebank knowledge base. See the results for yourself.
- How does climate change cause extinction? Not so much because of intolerance to high temperatures as due to disruption of relationships with other species, as it turns out. But it’s a small sample.
- Testing the “Local Provenance” Paradigm: A Common Garden Experiment in Cumberland Plain Woodland, Sydney, Australia. No difference between locally sourced and more “exotic” provenances. Bang goes that paradigm.
- Mapping the genomic architecture of ecological speciation in the wild: does linkage disequilibrium hold the key? Clever shortcut allows identification of key genes separating phenotypically distinct but admixing species. I think. It’s complicated.
- Breeding Strategies for Adaptation of Pearl Millet and Sorghum to Climate Variability and Change in West Africa. Anything that keeps diversity in the system, basically.
- Estimation of phenotypic divergence in a collection of Cucumis melo, including shelf-life of fruit. Old-fashioned morphological characterization of small Indian collection confirms distinction between botanical varieties. Not many people hurt.
- Pollen diversity matters: revealing the neglected effect of pollen diversity on fitness in fragmented landscapes. Fragmentation means lower pollen diversity in Eucalyptus sp., means lower progeny fitness, and not just because of inbreeding.
- Increasing Cropping System Diversity Balances Productivity, Profitability and Environmental Health. So let me get this straight. You mean to tell me that a little bit of industrial agriculture (synthetic inputs) can combine with a little bit of ecoagriculture (cropping diversity) to give you something that’s kinda better than both?
Nibbles: Agroforestry history, CBD COP, Social GCARD, Dog symbiosis, Indian databases, Beans means iron, Swedish climate change, Italian agrobiodiversity documentation
- Reminiscing at ICRAF about the history of (some of) the intellectual underpinnings of land sharing.
- The latest agrobiodiversity musings from Hyderabad.
- More reminiscing, this time from a GCARD2 social reporter.
- Dogs, the first domesticates?
- India links up its biodiversity databases. Including NBPGR’s?
- Iron-rich beans hit Rwanda. Rwanda reels from the impact. How long before someone thinks of dumping them into the ocean?
- “There will be no nice wine from Sweden this year.” Oh, dear.
- Documenting agricultural biodiversity. In Italian. Maybe Italy will now follow India (see above)?
Brainfood: Biodiversity surveys, Potato innovation, Wild sorghum, Bumblebee decline, Naked barley, Primate deterrents, Pastoralism, Mapping, Japanese forests, Aquaculture, Birds, Lentil mixtures, Eucalypt plantations, Seed adoption, Altai nomadism, Dung beetle diversity
- Systematic, large-scale national biodiversity surveys: NeoMaps as a model for tropical regions. The Neotropical Biodiversity Mapping Initiative (NeoMaps) provides good estimates of species richness, composition and relative abundance, in about 1 month of fieldwork per major taxonomic group and about US$ 1–8 per sq km. Now to do something similar for crop diversity.
- Insights into potato innovation systems in Bolivia, Ethiopia, Peru and Uganda. Rapid appraisal of potato innovation system by CIP et al. reveals differences among countries, but significant role of CIP across countries. Roles of farmer organizations and input supply companies limited everywhere.
- Population genetic structure of in situ wild Sorghum bicolor in its Ethiopian center of origin based on SSR markers. Significant differentiation among populations, despite long-distance seed movement and introgression.
- Assessing declines of North American bumble bees (Bombus spp.) using museum specimens. Half of the species are declining.
- Is naked barley an eastern or a western crop? The combined evidence of archaeobotany and genetics. Well, it used to be western too, up to the Bronze Age. Now mainly eastern.
- Crop protection and conflict mitigation: reducing the costs of living alongside non-human primates. A diversity of strategies for coping with malevolent biodiversity.
- Conserving biodiversity in a changing world: land use change and species richness in northern Tanzania. But, would you know it, pastoral grazing threatens other mammals.
- Mapping from heterogeneous biodiversity monitoring data sources. Could be interesting when folks get around to mapping agricultural biodiversity by smart phone.
- Sustainable management of planted landscapes: lessons from Japan. They planted trees, then neglected them because imports were cheaper, and now they’re paying some kind of price.
- Aquaculture: a newly emergent food production sector—and perspectives of its impacts on biodiversity and conservation. Mixed …
- Protection strategies for farmland birds in legume–grass leys as trade-offs between nature conservation and farmers’ needs. Cut high for succesful skylark nests with minimal impact on milk.
- Optimizing lentil-based mixed cropping with different companion crops and plant densities in terms of crop yield and weed control. Mixtures might be better, especially with wheat and barley.
- Role of eucalypt and other planted forests in biodiversity conservation and the provision of biodiversity-related ecosystem services. They can provide an opportunity for forest restoration, but it will take some rethinking. The mother-in-law will be pleased.
- Influence of Sources of Seed on Varietal Adoption Behavior of Wheat Farmers in Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. You need to get the message out if you want your improved varieties adopted. Can’t imagine you’d need a multinomial logit model to figure that out.
- Pastoral nomadism in the forest-steppe of the Mongolian Altai under a changing economy and a warming climate. As transport costs go up, and goat numbers increase because of cash from cashmere, mobility decreases and overgrazing results. A traditional way of life becoming unsustainable before your eyes.
- Species-rich dung beetle communities buffer ecosystem services in perturbed agro-ecosystems. Functional redundancy is not redundant after all.