Domestication

July 29, 2011July 27, 2011

A day in the life of archaeologists

Today is Day of Archaeology 2011 and a whole bunch of archaeologists are going to tell you about their day using social media. I bet many of them are digging up the remains of farming communities and studying the origins of agriculture. A great idea. How about A Day in the Life of a Genebanker next? Via.

July 28, 2011July 29, 2011

Unlocking a presentation on unlocking agriculture’s past

The talk that Jacob is planning to give later today at the National Geographic store in Madrid (and you can follow online) is now available on Slideshare.

Unlocking Agriculture's Past

View more presentations from Jacob van Etten

LATER: I forgot to use a hashtag, but you can see my live-tweeting of Jacob’s talk by searching for his name. Maybe Jacob can tell us if the video will be available in due course. And no, he didn’t answer my online question about the difference between oca and potato. Wimp.

July 25, 2011July 22, 2011

Brainfood: Chinese landscapes, Agroforestry seed, Italian lentils, Carrot heterosis, Taro in islands, Indian wheat, AnGR ex situ, Woodland shrines, Vitamin A, Caraway, Adansonia, Neotropical blueberries, Yeast genetics, Rotations

Agricultural landscapes and biodiversity in China. Traditional farming practices good for biodiversity, modern bad. Therefore need intensification, to take pressure off natural habitats. But no, wait, that usually means monocultures and chemicals, which are bad. Oh crap. No mention of genebanks.
Innovation in input supply systems in smallholder agroforestry: seed sources, supply chains and support systems. Decentralized commercial system probably best for getting quality agroforestry seed to smallholders. Unfortunately, nobody listening.
Characterization of Italian lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) germplasm by agronomic traits, biochemical and molecular markers. I object in principle to any paper that says a particular landrace is “the best.”
The relationship between heterosis and genetic distances based on RAPD and AFLP markers in carrot. It is positive. Was this really not known before in carrots? What am I missing?
Genetic diversity of taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) in Vanuatu (Oceania): an appraisal of the distribution of allelic diversity (DAD) with SSR markers. 10 villages, 344 landraces, 324 distinct multilocus genotypes, genetic pattern reflects social networks. Situation in Andaman Islands not quite so interesting.
A study of genetic diversity among Indian bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars released during last 100 years. More diversity after Green Revolution than before, but steadily decreasing.
Ex situ conservation genetics: a review of molecular studies on the genetic consequences of captive breeding programmes for endangered animal species. Restricted access, and you know what? I couldn’t care less.
Consequences of wooded shrine rituals on vegetation conservation in West Africa: a case study from the Bwaba cultural area (West Burkina Faso). I expect there are some, but with restricted access, what’s the point of even linking?
Evaluating sweet potato as an intervention food to prevent Vitamin A deficiency. To have an effect, you’d have to replace all the other types with orange-fleshed ones. Well, almost. Wonder whether it will be presented at the “International Scientific Symposium on Food & Nutrition Security Information: From valid measurement to effective decision-making” early next year.
Evaluation of variability of morphological traits of selected caraway (Carum carvi L.) genotypes. They’re actually breeding this stuff in Poland. But they had to get their germplasm from botanical gardens around Europe.
Variation in baobab seedling morphology and its implications for selecting superior planting material. There is some.
Edible Neotropical blueberries: antioxidant and compositional fingerprint analysis. The 5 species involved have different ones.
Population genomics and speciation in yeasts. There’s a question as to whether yeast species in fact exist in any meaningful sense.
Cereal–forage rotations effect on biochemical characteristics of topsoil and productivity of the crops in Mediterranean environment. Continuous cereal stressed the soil.

July 21, 2011July 21, 2011

Unlocking agriculture’s past to feed the future world

That’s the title of a talk our friend and occasional contributor Jacob van Etten will give in the National Geographic store in Madrid next week, on the 28th to be precise. If you can’t be there in person, you can follow Jacob online. And if that doesn’t work, no doubt he’ll tell us here how it all went. I just hope he explains to National Geographic the difference between a potato and an oca. In fact, why not open with that, Jacob? That’ll grab their attention.

July 15, 2011July 15, 2011

Quinoa phylogenetics unraveled

Our regular reader and occasional contributor Eve Emshwiller informs us that her student Brian Walsh has won the award for best student poster from the Economic Botany Section of the Botanical Society of America at Botany 2011 in St. Louis. Here’s the abstract. There’s some talk of the poster itself perhaps being made available online in due course. Fingers crossed.

Phylogeny of American Chenopodium species with focus on origins of the domesticated taxa.

The edible seeds of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa, Amaranthaceae) have gained popularity worldwide, based on nutritional qualities and ease of growing. Most people do not know quinoa is one of four cultigens of Chenopodium domesticated in the Americas: C. quinoa and C. pallidicaule from South America, C. berlandieri ssp. nuttalliae from Mesoamerica, and the extinct C. berlandieri ssp. jonesianum recovered from archaeological sites throughout eastern North America. Despite nearly 100 years of debate researchers still do not agree on the relationship among these domesticates. Conflicting hypotheses have been proposed asserting whether cultigens were domesticated independently or represent introductions into neighboring regions. Alternative hypotheses suggest two, three, or four independent domestications of Chenopodium in the Americas, and proposed several putative wild progenitors of the cultigens. To investigate the relationships among cultigens of Chenopodium and assess potential wild progenitors, a phylogenetic framework of the genus emphasizing New World species is required. Phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences of non-coding loci, both nuclear (SOS1 intron 17, COS at103, ITS) and plastid (trnQ-rps16, trnL-trnT, ndhJ-trnF-trnL, psbD-trnT, and psbM-ycf6), were conducted using parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analyses. Taxon sampling includes 19 Chenopodium species from North and South America, with focus on the extant cultigens and subspecific taxa within C. berlandieri.

Findings include the following: Chenopodium pallidicaule is genetically distinct from other extant cultigens.

Sampled cultivars of the Mesoamerican cultigen, C. berlandieri ssp. nuttalliae, unite in a single subclade, nested within, but distinct from wild C. berlandieri.

Chenopodium quinoa is nested within the C. berlandieri complex, but not within the C. berlandieri ssp. nuttalliae clade. Interestingly, the southern-most range of wild C. berlandieri is southern Mexico, whereas quinoa is cultivated in Eduador, Peru, and Bolivia. These findings are consistent with independent domestications of the extant cultigens. Using nucleotide markers unique to C. berlandieri ssp. nuttalliae, ancient-DNA analyses will be conducted to determine the relationship of the extinct cultigen, C. berlandieri ssp. jonesianum.