- Assessment of genetic diversity among alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) genotypes by morphometry, seed storage proteins and RAPD analysis. Morphology fits with geography, the others don’t.
- Insights into the historical biogeography of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) using geometric morphometry of modern and ancient seeds. Analysis of seed outlines using fancy maths identifies centres of diversity and migration routes.
- Loss of genetic diversity as a signature of apricot domestication and diffusion into the Mediterranean Basin. Or you could use microsatellites. Result: an Irano-Caucasian centre of domestication and two migration routes, N and S of the Mediterranean.
- Big hitting collectors make massive and disproportionate contribution to the discovery of plant species. Therefore, fund a small number of expert collectors in the right places. Luigi stands ready.
- Success Rates for Reintroductions of Eight Perennial Plant Species after 15 Years. Are pretty pathetic. Makes you wonder if all that collecting is worth it.
- Conservation of endemic insular plants: the genus Ribes L. (Grossulariaceae) in Sardinia. Seems rather a fuss for 1 species and 1 subspecies, crop wild relatives or not.
- Indicator-based agri-environmental payments: A payment-by-result model for public goods with a Swedish application. Hang on a minute, why is crop diversity not there?
Farming moved north with southern farmers
This is going to be all over the serious (and not so serious) blogs and news outlets, because it grabs the imagination better than a punch of burnt old seeds. DNA from four 5000-year old human skeletons in Sweden has revealed two genetically distinct populations. Three of the skeletons were hunter-gatherers. The fourth was a farmer. And the farmer’s DNA matched that of Mediterranean people, such as the people of Cyprus, while the hunter gatherers were typical Northern Europeans, but without any great affinity with any particular people. The two groups lived side by side for a long time, more than a thousand years, according to the researchers, and eventually interbred. The result is that none of today’s Northern Europeans has the same genetic profile as the original hunter-gatherers, although some hunter-gather genes are present in most Northern Europeans.
These results help to shore up the prevailing account of the spread of agriculture: that is was the farmers themselves who spread, rather than merely ideas about how to farm. The great mystery, for now, is did those farmers bring rye (Secale cereale, the classic cereal of Scandinavia) with them, or did it arrive much later. I don’t know nearly enough about the current story on rye domestication, but the centre of diversity and wild relatives seems to be in the Fertile Crescent, along with wheat and barley. There is evidence of domesticated rye from Neolithic Turkish sites, the earliest dated about 10,000 years ago. So plenty of time for it to have reached the southern Mediterranean and then moved up to Scandinavia, but did it? Most of the Central and Northern European rye remains are much more recent, only a couple of thousand years old. I look forward to a more learned account.
Nibbles: Anna Laurent, Sequencing, Gossypium, Capsicum, Native Americans, Journal, Genebank, Hairy fruit, JIC, Tasty tulips
- Design guru talks botany. Latest plant getting the treatment is the Hawaiian Cotton Tree. Which, despite its name, really is a (remote) cotton wild relative.
- What has Next Generation Sequencing ever done for me? And what you should know about how it works.
- And here’s an example of it at work: different cultivated cotton species have behaved differently, genetically speaking.
- That used ancient DNA, this one didn’t, but I guess a future one on chiles might. LATER: Ooops, just realized this is old. So what was it doing in my RSS feed?
- Speaking of chiles, here’s a couple of more things on Native American agriculture.
- Free access to the first issue of volume 20 of Journal for Nature Conservation for the next 12 months.
- Rebuilding the genebank in Ivory Coast.
- Discovering the wonders of the coconut. Their headline, not mine.
- The latest news from the John Innes Centre’s genebank.
- Fancy a tulip? To eat, that is.
Brainfood: Cotton, Wheat
- Archaeogenomic Evidence of Punctuated Genome Evolution in Gossypium. Egyption cotton is not very stable.
- On-farm dynamic management of genetic diversity: the impact of seed diffusions and seed saving practices on a population-variety of bread wheat. More studies of Rouge de Bordeaux show that population diversity mirrors seed-exchange systems.
Nibbles: Domesticating fruit trees, Plains Indians, Weedy rice, Prize, Maize festivals, Ifugao, Bangladeshi diets, Pacific hopes, Plant patents
- Domesticating fruit trees for food and profit. But why the “scare quotes” around clone?
- Indians 101: Northern Plains Agriculture.
- A different kind of weedy wild relative; feral rice.
- Great, innovative agricultural scientist? Prizes await you.
- Mexico’s corn festivals celebrate diversity – but why bring opposition to GMOs into it?
- Project to help the people who created and manage the Ifugao rice terraces to cope with climate change. Stay tuned.
- Project to “diversify … diets to improve nutrition and incomes in Bangladesh”. Stay tuned.
- And countries of the Pacific look to crop diversity to manage climate variability. Stay tuned.
- Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? Good question; stay tuned.