DNA – Page 62 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

February 15, 2013February 18, 2013

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.

February 12, 2013May 3, 2018

Nibbles: Maize genes, Livestock domestication, Guinea fowl, Plant identification, Juniper conservation, Cacao conservation, Seed talk, IPBES report, Global consultation

Today’s genomic breakthrough involves kernel number in maize.
Neolithic people overhunted, then thought better of it.
Was guinea fowl ever domesticated, I wonder?
How to figure out if you’ve looked hard enough. For plants, that is. And some discussion.
Gin is in trouble. But help is at hand.
A workshop on chocolate and vanilla. My kinda event. And chocolate does need help. Gin, chocolate. Pretty soon life wont be worth living.
Simran Sethi’s Twitter chat after TEDxManhattan was storified, but it’s gone now of course. Try this instead.
Final say on that IPBES-1 gabfest.
And the first say on that “Global Consultation on agricultural biodiversity for sustainable food security” thing.

February 4, 2013February 1, 2013

Brainfood: Vitamin C, Nutrition and health, European protected areas, Coffea diversity, Climate change modelling, Soil microbes, Niche modelling, Conflict, Human modified landscapes, Horse diversity, Pigeon diversity

The challenge of increasing vitamin C content in plant foods. Surely not just because it is challenging?
Health economics and nutrition: a review of published evidence. “[A]pproaches and methodologies are sometimes ad hoc in nature and vary widely in quality.” Ain’t that always the way.
European protected areas: Past, present and future. The future will need to be different from the past.
Genetic structure and diversity of coffee (Coffea) across Africa and the Indian Ocean islands revealed using microsatellites. Good correspondence with morphological species. Madagascar a diversity hotspot.
Special Issue of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology on Agricultural prediction using climate model ensembles. There’s more than one way to identify a potential adaptation hotspot. Well that’s reassuring. Not.
Changes in soil microbial functional diversity under different vegetation restoration patterns for Hulunbeier Sandy Land. Restoring desertified grassland led to more soil microbial diversity. Which is good because…?
A review of composition studies of Cameroon traditional dishes: Macronutrients and minerals. 117 of them. Good for Fe, Zn, Mg.
Essential elements of discourse for advancing the modelling of species’ current and potential distributions. There’s lots of methods, all quite different, embrace the diversity.
Understanding and managing conservation conflicts. Build up an evidence base, and employ some social scientists to explain it.
On the hope for biodiversity-friendly tropical landscapes. In the end, it’s about the agriculture. In more ways than one.
Genetic Diversity in the Modern Horse Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNP Data. High maternal, low paternal during domestication. Low diversity breeds the ones you’d expect. Similar breeds the ones you’d expect.
Genomic Diversity and Evolution of the Head Crest in the Rock Pigeon. Middle Eastern origins, Darwin vindicated. Again.

January 28, 2013January 28, 2013

Nibbles: Wikipedia, Cheese labels, Chickpea genome, Snake gourd, Phenotyping services, Politics, Sustainability on NUS, Brassica review

Natural History Museum wants a wikipedian. So, in a different way, does Crops for the Future.
The poetry of New York cheese labels.
Another crop genome bites the dust.
Kew contemplates the snake gourd.
Now you can outsource your experiments.
Strange bedfellows: small organic farmers and the Tea Party, a marriage made in Nebraska.
Got research on underutilized species (or indeed sustainable food chains) you think you might like to publish?
The OECD publishes a huge study of the biology of Brassica crops. Yes, the OECD.

January 28, 2013January 22, 2014

Brainfood: Peanuts, CC and biodiversity data, Climate change and vegetables, Biodiversity indicators, Lettuce diversity, Brazilian intensification, Brazilian natural products, English organic, Bolivian traditions, Protecting sea cucumbers, Urban meadows, Crop expansion, Chinese forests, Peach palm, Ancient RNA, Sweet potato movement, Date conservation

A study of the relationships of cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea) and its most closely related wild species using intron sequences and microsatellite markers. It’s a wise peanut that knows its parents: A. duranensis and A. ipaënsis, apparently.
Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information. The devil is in the detail. But basically, the Non-Commercial CC license is not what it sounds like.
Projecting annual air temperature changes to 2025 and beyond: implications for vegetable production worldwide. The devil is in the detail.
Essential Biodiversity Variables. There are even some on genetic diversity, and domesticated species get a mention. And no, not this sort of thing, do be serious.
Genetic composition of contemporary proprietary U.S. lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) cultivars. Romaine and crisphead much less diverse than leaf types. About 10 cultivars main ancestors. Couple wild species used. Lots of other cool stuff in this issue of GRACE. Maybe one day we’ll do a Brainfood on a single issue of a journal? Would people like that? Is anyone listening?
Insights into Brazilian agricultural structure and sustainable intensification of food production. That insight is spelled GMO. Ah, but with added agroecological and educational goodness.
Development of a Natural Products Database from the Biodiversity of Brazil. No doubt soon to be patented. See above.
Food production vs. biodiversity: comparing organic and conventional agriculture. There’s a tradeoff between biodiversity (off-farm) and yield (on farm), at least in lowland England.
Laggards or Leaders: Conservers of Traditional Agricultural Knowledge in Bolivia. Abandonment of traditional practices, including crop diversity, more to do with getting work off-farm than with age or education.
Sea cucumbers in the Seychelles: effects of marine protected areas on high-value species. They are positive.
Creating novel urban grasslands by reintroducing native species in wasteland vegetation. Seeding can create diverse native meadows in urban settings, even if people use them. I don’t know why this should make me feel so happy.
Crop Expansion and Conservation Priorities in Tropical Countries. So much for peak farmland.
Role of culturally protected forests in biodiversity conservation in Southeast China. They’re important, especially for tree diversity.
Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) in tropical Latin America: implications for biodiversity conservation, natural resource management and human nutrition. They’re good for nutrition and income, but could be even better.
Deep Sequencing of RNA from Ancient Maize Kernels. That’s right — RNA! It confirms previous ideas, and offers a new tool to look at domestication.
Historical collections reveal patterns of diffusion of sweet potato in Oceania obscured by modern plant movements and recombination. Speaking of which, the old tools are not that bad. Yes, the sweet potato did come to Polynesia in prehistoric times from South America. But not only.
On-Farm Diversity of Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L) in Sudan: A Potential Genetic Resources Conservation Strategy. Yup, there’s potential alright. Now can we see made real?