Domestication

February 15, 2018

Stirring up a rabbit controversy

In 600 AD…

…Pope Gregory the Great … decreed that laurices — newborn or fetal rabbits — didn’t count as meat. Christians could therefore eat them during Lent. They became a popular delicacy, and hungry monks started breeding them. Their work transformed the wild, skittish European rabbit into a tame domestic animal that tolerates humans.

Or maybe not, says Ed Yong.

In fact, “…when it comes to domestication, …when is the wrong question.” Shoot. ((For completeness, here’s a similar table for plants.))

February 8, 2018

Nibbles: ICRISAT sorghum, Citrus phylogeny, Mobiles, Medicinal genebank, Agroforestry benefits

Unusual story linking the adoption of new varieties with the possible loss of old ones.
Unusual story linking climate change with orange juice.
Unusual story linking mobile phones with debatable development impacts.
Story on an unusual, new(ish) USDA genebank.
Not very unusual story about the C sequestration impacts of agroforestry.

February 5, 2018February 5, 2018

Brainfood: MSB value, Wild rice genomes, Media coverage, Ancient turkeys, Diverse covers, ABS & sequences, Red listing, Old crops, Wild pollinators, Rice breeding, Farm & dietary diversity, Forages positives, Kurdish sheep

The conservation value of germplasm stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. 10% of about 40,000 taxa, >8% of collections, are either extinct, rare or vulnerable at global and/or national level; 20% of taxa, representing 13% collections, are endemic at the country or territory scale. And the cost, though?
Genomes of 13 domesticated and wild rice relatives highlight genetic conservation, turnover and innovation across the genus Oryza. Lots of things for breeders to play around with. Australians especially pleased.
Our House Is Burning: Discrepancy in Climate Change vs. Biodiversity Coverage in the Media as Compared to Scientific Literature. Biodiversity conservation community really bad at getting the message out.
Diversity of management strategies in Mesoamerican turkeys: archaeological, isotopic and genetic evidence. Separate domestications in Mesoamerica and SW USA; two types in former, one fed crops and the other, more flamboyant type, left to roam; neither eaten.
Functional traits in cover crop mixtures: Biological nitrogen fixation and multifunctionality. Design mixtures with complementary plant traits for maximum on-farm benefit.
Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture: opportunities and challenges emerging from the science and information technology revolution. The future is Norway.
Quantifying progress toward a conservation assessment for all plants. A quarter done.
The earliest occurrence of a newly described domesticate in Eastern North America: Adena/Hopewell communities and agricultural innovation. Erect knotweed used to be a crop, a mainstay of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Now it’s a weed. Can the same be said of other plants? Well, maybe.
Conserving honey bees does not help wildlife. Wild bees, that is.
Breeding implications of drought stress under future climate for upland rice in Brazil. Wide adaptation of upland rice in Brazil is not going to cut it.
Farm production diversity and dietary quality: linkages and measurement issues. Cash is often better than production diversity at predicting dietary diversity.
Tropical forage legumes for environmental benefits: An overview. Ruminant livestock production need not be bad for the environment. Useful list of research needs to make sure.
Complete mitogenomes from Kurdistani sheep: abundant centromeric nuclear copies representing diverse ancestors. There are lots of bits of mitochondrial DNA near the centromeres of all chromosomes bar the Y. Is that a problem for phylogenies?

December 18, 2017December 15, 2017

Brainfood: Maize diversity, Genetic ecology, SeedStor, Conservation impact, Women & seed, Wild pea, Wild walnuts, Livestock 4 wildlife

Contributions of Zea mays subspecies mexicana haplotypes to modern maize. That’s the highland teosinte, not the lowland from which maize was domesticated, and 10% of the maize genome shows some evidence of introgression from it.
The ecological importance of intraspecific variation. …is comparable to that of interspecific variation.
SeedStor: A Germplasm Information Management System and Public Database. Interested in the John Inness Centre’s genebank? Here, go crazy.
From displacement activities to evidence-informed decisions in conservation. It’s all about impact.
Breeding next generation tree fruits: technical and legal challenges. Not going to be easy.
Women’s empowerment through seed improvement and seed governance: Evidence from participatory barley breeding in pre-war Syria. What is done locally may be undone globally.
Genomic diversity and macroecology of the crop wild relatives of domesticated pea. P. fulvum is a good species, P. sativum subsp. elatius has 5 mainly geographic clusters; genetic diversity likely to be impacted by climate change.
Demographically idiosyncratic responses to climate change and rapid Pleistocene diversification of the walnut genus Juglans (Juglandaceae) revealed by whole-genome sequences. Every walnut species is different.
The consequences of replacing wildlife with livestock in Africa. More fires, woody species and methane.

December 11, 2017December 11, 2017

Brainfood: Wheat exudates, Conservation threats, Resilience, Dietary recommendations, Urban green spaces, Dog spread, Wild foods, Ethnic fish, Brazilian cattle, Nocturnal fixation, Agroforestry impacts

Evolution of the crop rhizosphere: impact of domestication on root exudates in tetraploid wheat (Triticum turgidum L.). Domestication and breeding have led to (probably adaptive) changes in root exudates.
Threats from urban expansion, agricultural transformation and forest loss on global conservation priority areas. Vertebrate Biodiversity Hotspots are most threatened by all three factors. Plants too?
Patterns and drivers of biodiversity–stability relationships under climate extremes. Species richness may not be enough to buffer ecosystems from extreme precipitations events. But a different metric would give a different result?
Evaluating the environmental impacts of dietary recommendations. Adopting nationally recommended diets would help the environment.
On the Use of Hedonic Price Indices to Understand Ecosystem Service Provision from Urban Green Space in Five Latin American Megacities. There’s an overall strong positive correlation between urban greenery and house prices, but it’s context-specific.
Disease: A Hitherto Unexplored Constraint on the Spread of Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in Pre-Columbian South America. Yes, why are there no dogs in the Amazon?
Children and Wild Foods in the Context of Deforestation in Rural Malawi. Fewer wild foods in more deforested sites, and fewer sold by children from better-off households. What of the nutrition outcomes, though?
Biodiversity defrosted: unveiling non-compliant fish trade in ethnic food stores. About 40% of samples in Liverpool and Manchester mislabelled.
Population viability analysis of the Crioula Lageano cattle. It’s going to be fine.
The Kalanchoë genome provides insights into convergent evolution and building blocks of crassulacean acid metabolism. Next stop, CAM rice.
Contribution of trees to the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. It depends. But what would those kids in Malawi say?