- Hidden hunger experts come out into the open.
- Bioversity germplasm collecting reports go online.
- Where the threatened species are.
- Fair trade, shmare trade.
- The Lumper makes a comeback.
- Rice innovation in Bangladesh, abandonment in Nepal.
- Cherfas smears himself in bog butter for new podcast.
- Genomics and the livestock industry.
Brainfood: Diverse grasslands, More diverse grasslands, Latitudinal meta-gradients, Acacia barcoding, Cryoconserving recalcitrant seeds, Tree tomato, Modeling parasites, Landscape complexity & services, Genomics & breeding
Transgressive overyielding of soil microbial biomass in a grassland plant diversity gradient. Dead link. More microbial biomass in mixtures of plants than in each of the monocultures. Which I guess is a good thing?- Ecosystem function enhanced by combining four functional types of plant species in intensively managed grassland mixtures: a 3-year continental-scale field experiment. That transgression goes for the yield of the plants too. The mixtures were also more resistant to weed invasion.
- Latitudinal gradients as natural laboratories to infer species’ responses to temperature. Meta-analysis shows that many life history traits vary with latitude, but not necessarily with temperature.
- DNA barcoding for conservation, seed banking and ecological restoration of Acacia in the Midwest of Western Australia. Not quite there yet, is it?
- Preservation of Recalcitrant Seeds. We have the technology. Recalcitrance is not an excuse. And may not be as common as advertised anyway.
- Genetic diversity and relationships in accessions from different cultivar groups and origins in the tree tomato (Solanum betaceum Cav.). It is variable. It originated in Ecuador. Even the press release struggles to say much more than that. They should have asked the mother-in-law.
- Metabolic approaches to understanding climate change impacts on seasonal host-macroparasite dynamics. Fortunately, and yet suspiciously, it is easy to estimate the model parameters even when you don’t have much data.
- Flow and stability of natural pest control services depend on complexity and crop rotation at the landscape scale. You need complexity in both space and time to get the most out of your landscapes.
- Improving fruit and wine: what does genomics have to offer? A lot. But you have to be ready for it.
Nibbles: UK horticulture funding, AVRDC, Biofortification, SRI debate, Stressed bees, Nutrient decline, Beneficial viruses, DNA for dummies, Chaffey, Cow genebank, Organic network
- For UK horticulturalists in need of cash. Wonder if that includes the rosemary collection.
- I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include AVRDC.
- Who would no doubt agree with Mark Lynas that “No-one disputes that a balanced and nutritionally-adequate diet is the best long-term solution to vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition in general.” And be as puzzled as the rest of us for the relative lack of funding for research on such a diet.
- A discussion of why mainstream agricultural science hasn’t got the message across about SRI, courtesy of Facebook. Yeah well, the whole concept of basing interventions on, you know, evidence, is not exactly mainstream. Just ask the balanced and nutritionally-adequate diet guys.
- Bees are stressed out, the poor things.
- Creative Commons graphs on changes in vegetable nutrient content.
- Not all plant viruses are bad.
- Pat Heslop-Harrison talks DNA, with his usual extraordinary fluency, from 11 mins in.
- Plant Cuttings! Everything from the botany of food to transcription factors for C4 photosynthesis.
- Cow genebank proposed.
- IFOAM gets a TIPI. Vandana Shiva no doubt ecstatic.
Brainfood: Understanding conservation, Melon diversity, Brassica viruses, Livestock domestication, Parks and conservation, Intensification, Wild apple, Conservation planning, Pepper diversity, Silene diversity, Connectivity in restoration, Paying for conservation, Dog evolution, Pasture productivity
- Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security. Probably not a bad list for agricultural biodiversity either.
- SNP genotyping in melons: genetic variation, population structure, and linkage disequilibrium. Two main population, 5 sub-populations, no surprises. Oh hum.
- Turnip Mosaic Potyvirus Probably First Spread to Eurasian Brassica Crops from Wild Orchids about 1000 Years Ago. Which corresponds to the expansion of agriculture in Europe as a result of a warming phase.
- The Prey Pathway: A Regional History of Cattle (Bos taurus) and Pig (Sus scrofa) Domestication in the Northern Jordan Valley, Israel. Domestication in 8th millennium, preceded by overhunting. And all figured out without recourse to DNA.
- The Effects of Isolation and Natural Park Coverage for Landrace In situ Conservation: An Approach from the Montseny Mountains (NE Spain). Do farmers in parks conserve landraces because they are isolated, or because they are in parks? Both, it seems.
- Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Doubling in food demand from 2005 to 2050 predicted. Current trends of intensification in rich countries and expansion in not-so-rich bad, moderate intensification everywhere good.
- Postglacial recolonization history of the European crabapple (Malus sylvestris Mill.), a wild contributor to the domesticated apple. Differentiation in 3 separate glacial refugia, then expansion and admixture at boundaries.
- Testing Surrogacy Assumptions: Can Threatened and Endangered Plants Be Grouped by Biological Similarity and Abundances? No.
- Characterization of Capsicum annuum Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Based on Parallel Polymorphism Discovery with a 30K Unigene Pepper GeneChip. The hot ones are more diverse.
- Agronomical use as baby leaf salad of Silene vulgaris based on morphological, biochemical and molecular traits. Some populations are nicer than others.
- Patterns of contemporary gene flow suggest low functional connectivity of grasslands in a fragmented agricultural landscape. When restoring a species at a site, it is better if the new population is near a large existing population.
- Using choice experiments to understand public demand for the conservation of nature: A case study in a protected area of Chile. Visitors willing to pay $2-9 per visit, depending on the ecosystem service provided, which didn’t alas include CWRs.
- Y chromosome analysis of dingoes and Southeast Asian village dogs suggests a Neolithic continental expansion from Southeast Asia followed by multiple Austronesian dispersals. Dogs arose independently in SE Asia and displaced older lineages to the N and W.
- More Stable Productivity of Semi Natural Grasslands than Sown Pastures in a Seasonally Dry Climate. Over the course of a year that is, presumably due to species diversity. And the odd tree helps towards the end of the dry season. Which is why ICRAF is all over it.
Wild sunflower speciation talk…and more
Talks from #PAGXXI workshop on speciation genomics now available online https://t.co/C1DTh1yi
— Prof Richard Buggs (@RJABuggs) February 15, 2013
Which is particularly cool for us here because it includes that of Rose Andrew of the Rieseberg Lab at the University of British Columbia on “The Genomic and Geographic Landscapes of Sunflower Speciation: The Transition from Local Adaptation.” More from PAGXXI.
LATER: Plus there’s the whole Genomics of Genebanks thing too.