- Floristic classifications and bioregionalizations are not predictors of intra-specific evolutionary patterns. You can’t use spatial structures in interspecific diversity to predict spatial structure in instraspecific diversity. Gotta do the hard work, there are no shortcuts.
- Intraspecific trait variability in wild plant populations predicts neither variability nor performance in a common garden. You can’t use intraspecific diversity in wild populations to predict how those populations will do elsewhere. Gotta do the hard work, there are no shortcuts.
- Farming for the future: Understanding factors enabling the adoption of diversified farming systems. Access to extension services, strong social networks, and perceived environmental benefits contribute to the diversification of farming systems, but their effects are context-specific. So yeah, you guessed it, you still gotta do the hard work.
- Changes in Plant Genetic Resources in the Southeast Region of Poland from the 1980s to 2023. I wonder which one(s) of the above has been missing in the Lubelskie Voivodeship.
- Abundant Genetic Diversity Harbored by Traditional Naked Barley Varieties on Tibetan Plateau: Implications in Their Effective Conservation and Utilization. I wonder which one(s) of the above has been most effective in the Tibetan Plateau.
- Genetic diversity in in situ and ex situ collections of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] landraces. I wonder which one(s) of the above has been most effective in norther Karnataka.
- Enhancing food security amid climate change through rewilding and de novo domestication. Sounds like hard work. But worth doing.
- Characteristics of the ET, a new species created by interspecific hybridization of two wild eggplants. Sounds like hard work. But worth doing?
- Painting the diversity of a world’s favorite fruit: A next generation catalog of cultivated bananas. Chromosome painting, that is. Definitely worth doing.
- Delineation of selection efficiency and coincidence of multi-trait-based models in a global germplasm collection of pearl millet for a comprehensive assessment of stability and high performing genotypes. Stable AND high-yielding? Sounds like the hard work has been done.
- Chromosome-scale reference genome of an ancient landrace: unveiling the genetic basis of seed weight in the food legume crop pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan). Now for the hard work…
- A chromosome-scale reference genome of grasspea (Lathyrus sativus). Now for the even harder work…
- Assessment of genetic diversity, inbreeding, and collection completeness of Jersey bulls in the US National Animal Germplasm Program. I suspect it will be hard work, but don’t forget the low merit bulls. And that probably goes for plants too.
Nibbles: KC Bansal, Mike Jackson, Spain strawberry genebank, Ho-Chunk maize, Heritage varieties, Roman apples, Hazelnut breeding, Old rye, Serbia grapevine herbarium, Horse domestication, Mt Vernon fruits, Worldwide Day of Botanical Art, Pre-colonial African agriculture
- Prof. KC Bansal, who used to run the Indian national genebank, gets a much-deserved UNESCO honour.
- Friend-of-the-blog Dr Mike Jackson on running a rice genebank. UNESCO honour for him too?
- Spain’s strawberry genebank gets its 15 minutes.
- University and Native American nation collaborate on regenerating heritage corn varieties.
- The pros and cons of heritage varieties, according to an American farmer.
- Did the ancient Romans have heritage apples?
- Beautifully written piece on the use of heritage varieties — and much else besides — in breeding hazelnuts in the US. If you only read one of these Nibbles, read this one.
- Old shipwrecked rye seeds may end up in whiskey. Best place for them.
- Old Serbian grapevine herbarium samples should stay right where they are.
- Old horses most certainly did not stay where they were. But where was that exactly?
- Not sure where old bottled fruit from Washington’s estate will end up. The DNA lab maybe, like those Serbian grapevines?
- There’s going to be a Worldwide Day of Botanical Art on May 18, 2025. Rejoice.
- Decolonizing food insecurity in West Africa.
Brainfood: Cattle domestication double, Sheep domestication, Lomas in Peru, Sweet potato in Aotearoa, Bananas in SE Asia, African wild eggplants, Brassicaceae conservation review, Vanilla in Madagascar
- Global dispersal and adaptive evolution of domestic cattle: a genomic perspective. The scope of adaptation is pretty amazing, and has been aided by introgression from wild relatives.
- The genomic natural history of the aurochs. Which is just as well because the initial diversity of the domesticate was probably rather limited, at least in Europe.
- The Population History of Domestic Sheep Revealed by Paleogenomes. Early domesticated sheep genomes were pretty dynamic too, sometimes in parallel with shepherds and sometimes not.
- Late pre-Hispanic fog oasis settlements and long-term human occupation on the Peruvian central coast from satellite imagery. No cattle or sheep in pre-Hispanic lomas, but plenty of camelids and crops.
- American sweet potato and Asia-Pacific crop experimentation during early colonisation of temperate-climate Aotearoa/New Zealand. One of those crops was in Aotearoa by the 14th century, which is amazing.
- Musa species in mainland Southeast Asia: From wild to domesticate. Even the very wild species are affected by human use.
- Landscape genomics reveals genetic signals of environmental adaptation of African wild eggplants. Environment is not the main driver of selection, but still pretty important and thus useful in breeding. Kinda like cattle?
- Current status of global conservation and characterisation of wild and cultivated Brassicaceae genetic resources. Gotta conserve those wild relatives probably though, if they are to be used.
- Genome-wide assessment of genetic variation and population structure in cultivated vanilla from Madagascar. The results of a breeding programme 80 years ago involving wild relatives can be seen in the current structure of diversity.
Brainfood: Heraclitus, Cocoyam, Pollen, Dry chain, DSI, Global Biodiversity Framework
- Will a plant germplasm accession conserved in a genebank change genetically over time? Sure, change is inevitable, but it can be minimized, and some can be accepted.
- Cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott) genetic resources and breeding: a review of 50 years of research efforts. Conventional breeding, based on inducing flowering, is possible, but will require more international exchange of germplasm. I hope someone is saving the seeds.
- Pollen banking is a critical need for conserving plant diversity. Even if it changes genetically over time.
- Applications of dry chain technology to maintain high seed viability in tropical climates. You’ve got to dry your seeds fast and hard. Probably your pollen too, come to that.
- Harmonize rules for digital sequence information benefit-sharing across UN frameworks. The big question is, should there be a single trigger point for monetary benefits, or separate ones for each treaty? At least the sequences do not change over time. But what about if the accessions from which they are derived do?
- Involving citizens in monitoring the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Yes, let’s get citizens to help us monitor all that change.
Brainfood: Beverage edition
- Crop-to-wild gene flow in wild coffee species: the case of Coffea canephora in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. DNA bits diagnostic of domesticated coffee are finding their way into wild rainforest populations, but not all that much.
- The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars. Diversity was already pretty low in pre-domestication wild arabica, and continued going downhill after that. Time to re-synthesize the crop, I say.
- Beyond the Orthodoxy: An Overview of the Potential of ‘Other’ Coffee Species for Crop Use and their Associated Challenges. All well and good, but don’t forget there’s more to coffee than just arabica and robusta.
- Advancing Coffee Genetic Resource Conservation and Exchange: Global Perspectives and Strategies from the ICC 2024 Satellite Workshop. Time to properly secure all coffee diversity in genebanks, and that includes sorting out ABS.
- Expanding the cacao group: three new species of Theobroma sect. Herrania (Malvaceae: Byttnerioideae) from the Western Amazon Basin. Plenty of “other” cacao species too, and more coming.
- Seed morphometrics unravels the evolutionary history of grapevine in France. There was wild-domesticate geneflow in early grapevines in France as well as in robusta coffee in the DRC, and you don’t need to trace bits of DNA to prove it.
- Characterization and analysis of a Commiphora species germinated from an ancient seed suggests a possible connection to a species mentioned in the Bible. Thousand-year-old seed is a distinct and possibly long-lost species of myrrh. Which ok is not a beverage but still vaguely liquid, at least initially.
- Sesame, an Underutilized Oil Seed Crop: Breeding Achievements and Future Challenges. Ok, since we’re doing liquid-producing crops, let’s include this review of sesame improvement. Lots of wild species to use. No word on wild-domesticate geneflow though.