Domestication

July 24, 2022

Documenting agricultural biodiversity everywhere

Nice to see a couple of examples of agrobiodiversity catalogues, albeit of very different kinds, available online.

The Catàleg de varietats locals de Catalunya (from that autonomous community of Spain’s Department d’Acció Climàtita, Alimentació i Agenda Rural) can be searched online by either cultivated species (hint: “mongueta” is Phaseolus vulgaris) or the “entitat” that is managing the landrace.

On the other hand, the Field Guide to the Cultivated Plants of the Philippines (Volume 1: Commonly cultivated species) from the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) can be downloaded as a beautifully produced PDF.

And since I’m here, I might as well point to a nice infographic summarizing the cultivated Citrus family tree. I may have shared this (or something similar) before, but I’m hoping that if I keep doing so some of the details will eventually stick in my brain.

July 11, 2022July 12, 2022

Brainfood: Rice domestication, Roman wine, Dog domestication, Earth ovens, Forest orchards, Saffron origins

The Fits and Starts of Indian Rice Domestication: How the Movement of Rice Across Northwest India Impacted Domestication Pathways and Agricultural Stories. While cultivation of (indica) rice in South Asia began in the Ganges around 6500 BC, its domestication really speeded up 3000 years later in the Indus.
Archaeobotanical and chemical investigations on wine amphorae from San Felice Circeo (Italy) shed light on grape beverages at the Roman time. In the second century BC the ancient Romans may have traded a medicinal wine made from wild or semi-domesticated grapevines. I wonder how it would have gone with a nice risotto.
Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs. Either dogs were domesticated independently in E and W Eurasia and then the two lineages merged, or they were domesticated in the E and then there was geneflow from wild dogs. Sounds a bit like rice actually. ((No, really, check it out. Japonica gets domesticated in one place, then taken to another place where it gets into geneflow with indica, which is being domesticated elsewhere. Only difference is that 2 different wild species are involved, rather than just a single wild wolf species. Also maybe echoes of what happened in tomato too?))
Bulbs and Biographies, Pine Nuts and Palimpsests: Exploring Plant Diversity and Earth Oven Reuse at a Late Period Plateau Site. For 2000 years Native Americans returned to specific food processing sites dug into the soil to cook up a storm. No word on the use of wild grapevines.
Coupled archaeological and ecological analyses reveal ancient cultivation and land use in Nuchatlaht (Nuu-chah-nulth) territories, Pacific Northwest. Native Americans nurtured forest gardens to enrich them with edible species. Including wild apples though again not wild grapevines apparently.
Ancient Artworks and Crocus Genetics Both Support Saffron’s Origin in Early Greece. Ok now everything is in place for a nice risotto alla Milanese with a Falanghina at the House of the Tragic Poet.

June 20, 2022June 14, 2022

Brainfood: Red rice beer, Chicken domestication, Perennial rice, Biofortified rice, Ancient wheats, Brassica domestication, Potato domestication, Sunflower domestication, Early agriculture

The quest for red rice beer: transregional interactions and development of competitive feasting in Neolithic China. In the 4th millennium BCE, in China, people brewed a sacred red beer in vats called dakougang using rice, millet, Job’s tears, wheat and snake gourd root.
The biocultural origins and dispersal of domestic chickens. The earliest domesticated chickens are found 1650-1250 BCE in central Thailand and were attracted by stored rice and millet. No word on the role of beer.
Performance, Economics and Potential Impact of Perennial Rice PR23 Relative to Annual Rice Cultivars at Multiple Locations in Yunnan Province of China. But does it make decent beer and attract chickens?
Genomic prediction of zinc-biofortification potential in rice gene bank accessions. Check out in particular the aus subspecies. No word on whether the resulting beer and chickens are also high in zinc.
Do ancient wheats contain less gluten than modern bread wheat, in favour of better health? More to the point, do they make better beer?
Evidence for two domestication lineages supporting a middle-eastern origin for Brassica oleracea crops from diversified kale populations. Chickens not involved at all.
Genome evolution and diversity of wild and cultivated potatoes. Propagation by tubers had a big effect on the cultivated potato genome compared to propagation by seed. And no, I’m not going to get into the whole chickens-in-South-America controversy right now, but you can google it.
The genomics of linkage drag in sunflower. Introgression from wild relatives has been good for some things, bad for others, but in general pre-breeders should stick to the primary genepool. And watch out for chickens.
From horticulture to agriculture: New data on farming practices in Late Chalcolithic western Anatolia. While domestic units were small and agriculture extensive, cooperation was widespread and inequality low. Then those Bronze Age elites got chickens…

May 30, 2022May 30, 2022

Brainfood: First farmers, First dogs, First olives, Food sharing, Seed longevity, Seed germination, Conservation & climate change, Urban gardens, Seed movement, Machine learning, Web crawling, Imaging spectroscopy

Ancient DNA maps ‘dawn of farming’. Hunter-gatherers from Europe and the Middle East mixed and settled down as farmers in Anatolia, then spread to Europe.
The Australian dingo is an early offshoot of modern breed dogs. The dingo originated from grey wolves, and found itself isolated, much earlier than all other dog breeds.
The first use of olives in Africa around 100,000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers used the wild olive long before they domesticated either it or the dog.
Intestinal parasites in the Neolithic population who built Stonehenge (Durrington Walls, 2500 BCE). Neolithic people and their dogs ate the same things.
Comparative seed longevity under genebank storage and artificial ageing: a case study in heteromorphic wheat wild relatives. Seeds of the same crop wild relatives species but with different shapes have different seed longevities.
Stepping up to the thermogradient plate: a data framework for predicting seed germination under climate change. But do heteromorphic seeds have different germination requirements too? Here’s how to find out.
Conservation interventions can benefit species impacted by climate change. Biodiversity was helped with the effects of climate change in 30% of cases, especially if interventions were targeted on specific species. Genebanks available for comment.
Urban conservation gardening in the decade of restoration. Speaking of interventions…
South and/or north: an indigenous seed movement in South Korea and the multiple bases of food sovereignty. Wait, what about the genebank though?
Perspectives in machine learning for wildlife conservation. Surely if you can use fancy tech and maths to monitor cheetahs, monitoring crop wild relative populations and landraces should be a doddle.
Quantifying an online wildlife trade using a web crawler. Surely if you can crawl the web for evidence of illicit wildlife trade, crawling it to evidence of genetic erosion of crop diversity should be a doddle.
Plant beta-diversity across biomes captured by imaging spectroscopy. How about capturing beta-diversity within crop fields, though? A doddle, no? We’ve come a long way since those first Anatolian farmers and their dingoes.

May 16, 2022May 13, 2022

Brainfood: Landrace gaps, Musa gaps, Teff use, Wheat evolution, NUS services, Phenotyping, Harappan residues, Food trade

State of ex situ conservation of landrace groups of 25 major crops. Two thirds done, on average, at least by this measure, with these data.
Phylogeography and conservation gaps of Musa balbisiana Colla genetic diversity revealed by microsatellite markers. But of course there are always other ways of doing it.
Value of teff (Eragrostis tef) genetic resources to support breeding for conventional and smallholder farming: a review. An example of why doing the above for all crops is important.
Evolution and origin of bread wheat. Another example. But the B genome remains elusive.
Diversity and Diversification: Ecosystem Services Derived From Underutilized Crops and Their Co-benefits for Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes and Resilient Food Systems in Africa. So many services. And yet…
Crop phenotyping in a context of global change: What to measure and how to do it. So many toys.
Integrating Lipid and Starch Grain Analyses From Pottery Vessels to Explore Prehistoric Foodways in Northern Gujarat, India. And more toys. They made biodiverse stews in the Indus Valley Civilization.
International food trade benefits biodiversity and food security in low-income countries. Low-income, very biodiverse countries are importing more food, which is somehow good for biodiversity. No word on its effect on agrobiodiversity.