- Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions. Income doesn’t necessarily translate into better nutrition, but keeping livestock does. Happy New Year.
- The commonness of rarity: Global and future distribution of rarity across land plants. Rare species are especially vulnerable to climate and land use change.
- Exploring on-farm agro-biodiversity: a study case of vegetable landraces from Puglia region (Italy). High vegetable landrace diversity may be linked to poor soils and distance from urban centres.
- Measuring Forest Biodiversity Status and Changes Globally. Combines biodiversity significance and intactness, and comes up with not that many places.
- Escaping the perfect storm of simultaneous climate change impacts on agriculture and marine fisheries. Business as usual means 90% of world’s population will see declines in both agricultural and fisheries production.
- Potential for smart food products in rural Myanmar: use of millets and pigeonpea to fill the nutrition gap. 2 weeks of inclusion had positive effect on wasting, stunting and underweight.
- Super-Pangenome by Integrating the Wild Side of a Species for Accelerated Crop Improvement. Add up species pangenomes for a whole genepool. Would be cool to grow it.
- Plant Pest Impact Metric System (PPIMS): Framework and guidelines for a common set of metrics to classify and prioritise plant pests. Host crop value, market access, feasibility of management and reversibility are the most important ones.
- A new source of root-knot nematode resistance from Arachis stenosperma incorporated into allotetraploid peanut (Arachis hypogaea). You have to cross it with another wild relative first.
- The impact of sample selection strategies on genetic diversity and representativeness in germplasm bank collections. Different approaches to making cores tested with maize data from Seeds of Discovery.
- Affordability of the EAT–Lancet reference diet: a global analysis. US$2.84 per day, or more than household per capita income for at least 1.58 billion people.
- Allelochemicals targeted to balance competing selections in African agroecosystems. Levels of tannins in sorghum correlated with taste receptor variant in humans and presence of sparrows.
- Genetic Architecture of Chilling Tolerance in Sorghum Dissected with a Nested Association Mapping Population. Chilling tolerance associated with low tannin and short stature. No word on the role of sparrows.
- Characterization of Genetic Diversity Conserved in the Gene Bank for Dutch Cattle Breeds. Almost optimized, at least for bulls.
Brainfood: Accessibility data smorgasbord, Microclimate megadataset, Breeding strategies, Aeroponic cassava, Jatropha conservation, Wheat diversity, Botanic gardens, Polyploid duo, Rhizosphere symbiosis, Selfing niches, Pepper priorities, Eggplant core, Ipomoea evolution, Kenyan supermarkets
- A suite of global accessibility indicators. How long it takes to get from anywhere in the world to settlements of different size. Or took, in 2015.
- A method for computing hourly, historical, terrain‐corrected microclimate anywhere on Earth. Why you might want to move in the first place.
- Genetic strategies for improving crop yields. “Valuable genetic diversity for increasing crop resilience resides in cultivated landraces, heirloom varieties and the wild relatives of crops.”
- A low-cost aeroponic phenotyping system for storage root development: unravelling the below-ground secrets of cassava (Manihot esculenta). But sometimes you have to work hard to get at it: case in point.
- High SNP diversity in the non-toxic indigenous Jatropha curcas germplasm widens the potential of this upcoming major biofuel crop species. And here’s another.
- Genome-wide variation patterns between landraces and cultivars uncover divergent selection during modern wheat breeding. In China and Pakistan anyway.
- Plant populations of three threatened species experience rapid evolution under ex situ cultivation. So don’t cultivate, store seeds instead. Or as well.
- Genes derived from ancient polyploidy have higher genetic diversity and are associated with domestication in Brassica rapa. Polyploidy pre-adapts plants for domestication.
- Genome duplication effects on functional traits and fitness are genetic context and species dependent: studies of synthetic polyploid Fragaria. Case in point.
- A mutualistic interaction between Streptomyces bacteria, strawberry plants and pollinating bees. The rhizosphere protects.
- Do selfing species have greater niche breadth? Support from ecological niche modeling. Yes indeed.
- Modelled distributions and conservation status of the wild relatives of chile peppers (Capsicum L.). 50% are high priority for conservation. No word on their mating systems.
- Construction of a core collection of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) based on genome-wide SNP and SSR genotypes. From 893 to 100, in 4 geographical clusters.
- A taxonomic monograph of Ipomoea integrated across phylogenetic scales. A whole bunch of new species, and evidence that some 60 species independently developed storage roots before humans were even around. Yes, even sweetpotato.
- Supermarket food purchases and child nutrition in Kenya. Not a bad thing.
Brainfood: Livestock cryo, Yeast evolution, PAs & CC, Genomes, Trifolium ambiguum, Earthworm map, Photosynthesis double, RCTs, Brown rice, DH maize, Breed performance maps
- Genetic Cryopreservation of Rare Breeds of Domesticated North American Livestock: Smithsonian & SVF Biodiversity Preservation Project. 106,109 “units of germplasm” from 39 breeds.
- Interspecific hybridization facilitates niche adaptation in beer yeast. Chimerization is not a word I thought I would ever see in a beer context. Anyway, thank goodness for feral yeasts and their propensity for miscegenation.
- Predicted climate shifts within terrestrial protected areas worldwide. PAs in temperate and northern high-latitude will have high area proportions of novel climate conditions by the end of the century.
- Crop Genomics Goes Beyond a Single Reference Genome. Looks like we’ll always need another genome.
- Morphometric approaches to promote the use of exotic germplasm for improved food security and resilience to climate change: A kura clover example. Fancy maths used to describe the hell out of a small collection of an underused clover.
- Global distribution of earthworm diversity. Peaks at higher latitudes, but higher overall in the tropics.
- Natural genetic variation in photosynthesis: an untapped resource to increase crop yield potential? Sounds like it.
- Increasing Photosynthesis: Unlikely Solution For World Food Problem. Ok, maybe not.
- What role should randomized control trials play in providing the evidence base for conservation? A bigger role that currently, but watch out.
- Brown Rice, a Diet Rich in Health Promoting Properties. Mill less.
- Loss of diversity and accumulation of genetic load in doubled-haploid lines from European maize landrace. DH not a panacea.
- Maize agro-food systems to ensure food and nutrition security in reference to the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Using phenotypic distribution models to predict livestock performance. Niche models + performance.
Brainfood: Ecosystem services, Farmer Variety protection, Pineapple genome, Almond genome, Date palm genome, Sesame diversity, Frangmentation double, Alternative beans, AI & farmers, De-domestication
- Global modeling of nature’s contributions to people. Declining where the need is greatest. And that’s not even taking CWR into account.
- Farmer’s Varieties in India – Factors affecting their preferential prevalence and the current status of their legal protection. Open-pollinated crops are missing out.
- The bracteatus pineapple genome and domestication of clonally propagated crops. Domestication and early improvement as the result of a single clonal propagation event.
- Transposons played a major role in the diversification between the closely related almond and peach genomes: Results from the almond genome sequence. Including the sweet kernel phenotype.
- Genome-wide association mapping of date palm fruit traits. Fruit color and sugar composition changed in parallel.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of the Mediterranean sesame core collection with use of genome-wide SNPs developed by double digest RAD-Seq. Three genetic groups, but not geographically based.
- Ongoing accumulation of plant diversity through habitat connectivity in an 18-year experiment. You need those corridors.
- Meta‐analysis of the differential effects of habitat fragmentation and degradation on plant genetic diversity. You really do.
- In search of alternative proteins: unlocking the potential of underutilized tropical legumes. Beyond soybeans. I always liked Bambara groundnut.
- A scalable scheme to implement data-driven agriculture for small-scale farmers. Fancy maths put to some good use in Colombia. But what if it tells you to grow more coca?
- The evolution of crops that do not need us anymore. They’re called weeds.
Brainfood: Rice roots, Avocado genome, Sicilian greens, Mexican & Colombian cacao, US diversity, Cassava photosynthesis, Intense dairy, Bourbon, Grape rootstocks, Heirlooms, Ancient pastoralism, Onion polyploidy, Toxic compounds, Technology adoption
- Root anatomical traits of wild-rices reveal links between flooded rice and dryland sorghum. Mine the rice G genome for sorghum-like root traits.
- The avocado genome informs deep angiosperm phylogeny, highlights introgressive hybridization, and reveals pathogen-influenced gene space adaptation. 2 polyploidy events in its evolution; the Hass is Guatemalan introgressed into Mexican material, recently.
- Wild leafy plants market survey in Sicily: From local culture to food sustainability. You can cultivate and market them, but people do like collecting them from the wild themselves.
- A History of Cacao in West Mexico: Implications for Mesoamerica and U.S. Southwest Connections. Associated with the cult of the sun deity Xochipilli.
- Cacao breeding in Colombia, past, present and future. Breeders only recently turned to local material, and are now reaping the whirlwind. No word of the involvement of deities.
- The impact of agricultural landscape diversification on U.S. crop production. Maize and wheat yields increase with the number of agricultural land use categories in a region.
- Protein Cross-Interactions for Efficient Photosynthesis in the Cassava Cultivar SC205 Relative to Its Wild Species. Domesticated cassava is more C4 than its wild relatives.
- Routes to achieving sustainable intensification in simulated dairy farms: The importance of production efficiency and complimentary land uses. Not for the first time, crop-level diversity provides the win-win.
- Assessing the impact of corn variety and Texas terroir on flavor and alcohol yield in new-make bourbon whiskey. It’s the benzaldehyde.
- Genetic diversity and parentage analysis of grape rootstocks. 39% of the genetic background of 26 rootstocks derived from 3 accessions, admittedly of 3 different species.
- Pursuing the Potential of Heirloom Cultivars to Improve Adaptation, Nutritional, and Culinary Features of Food Crops. Look beyond yield.
- The Rise of Pastoralism in the Ancient Near East. Couldn’t have done so without sedentary communities.
- Polyploidy promotes species diversification of Allium through ecological shifts. Largely edaphic shifts, in fact.
- Assessing Specialized Metabolite Diversity in the Cosmopolitan Plant Genus Euphorbia L. Toxic diterpenoids are more structurally diverse where pressure from herbivores is strongest.
- Rethinking technological change in smallholder agriculture. Not so much adoption as propositions, encounters, dispositions and responses.