Category: Genebanks

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More Mexican maize mayhem

It didn’t take long for my prediction to come true that the Mexican maize dataset I blogged about a couple of weeks back would get some more attention. The lead author of that previous paper, Hugo Perales, has teamed up with Quetzalcóatl Orozco-Ramírez and our old friend Robert Hijmans to do a deep dive into the database of 18,176 georeferenced observations of about 60 maize races. Some key findings:

  • Both at national and state level, there are a few very common races, and many races with very few observations.
  • 10% of the races account for 54% of the records.
  • Over half of the races account for 10% of the records.
  • The maximum distance between two records of the same race was just over 1000 km on average, the maximum about 2600 km, and lower than 200 km for 7 races.
  • There was a positive association between the number of observations and the number of races in both 50 km and 100 km square cell.

I particularly liked the new map of “maize communities,” that is, regions where more or less similar assemblages of races are found.

Although the previous paper had a similar map of “biogeographic regions,” this is more detailed and robust. Intriguingly, the hotspots of highest diversity tend to occur where distinct maize communities meet.

I’ll see if I can get Robert so say a few words about this work here.

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Brainfood: Dope diversity, Potato chips, Conservation costing, Island breeding systems, Indus civilization cereals, Drone phenotyping, Wild rice in Asia, Wild rice & Native Americans, Pearl millet temperature, Climate change & fruit/veg

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Nibbles: ICARDA genebank, Mexican honeys, NWFP news, Schisandra, Swimming camels, Barley genome, Silly video, Tasty breeders, Tall maize, Praying for the prairie, Rosaceous breeding, Millet fair, Sesame entrepreneurs, European AnGR, Thai gardens, Apple resistance, Native Californians

  • Latest on the ICARDA genebank from the author of The Profit of the Earth.
  • Honey diversity in Mexico.
  • Speaking of which, did we already point to the new, improved Non-wood Forest Products Newsletter?
  • The schisandra berry is apparently helping save the panda. Yeah, I never heard of it either, but more power to its elbow.
  • Make your day better by looking at pictures of aquatic camels.
  • Oh, here we go, cue the endless stream of stories about how genomics will save beer.
  • “In the last century, 94% of the world’s seed varieties have disappeared.” No, they bloody haven’t. Only linking to this for completeness.
  • Breeders get into flavour. Because celebrity chefs.
  • That’s one tall maize plant. No, but really tall.
  • The Great Plains are in Great Trouble: “Hundreds of species call the prairie home… A cornfield, on the other hand, is a field of corn.”
  • A project dedicated to the genetic improvement of US rosaceous crops. Love that word. Rosaceous.
  • Eat those millets!
  • Sesame opens doors in Tanzania. See what I did there?
  • Interview on conserving Europe’s livestock diversity.
  • WorldVeg empowers women through gardening. I know how they feel. Well, kinda.
  • Want a Forbidden Apple? You know you do. #resist
  • “Accustomed to seeing crops planted in straight rows featuring one or a few different varieties, Muir and his European predecessors were not prepared to recognize this subtler form of horticulture. And so they viewed California Indians as lazily gathering the fat of a landscape they had hardly touched.”
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Mapping “flourishing” genebanks

The Atlas for the End of the World is a collection of maps and infographics covering two important subjects: the first is the amount of protected area in the world’s biodiversity hotspots and how these regions are tracking in regard to meeting 2020 United Nations (Aichi) protected area targets; the second is an assessment of which cities in these hotspots are growing on collision courses with remnant habitat and endangered species.

Nice idea, of course. And given their first aim, as described above, they didn’t really need to do anything on genebanks or botanic gardens. But they did, and here is the resulting map (click to enlarge).

And this is what they say about it:

Even at a glance this map shows the disturbing fact that while the hotspots are being drained of life, small zoological and botanical gardens seem to be flourishing.

Well, I don’t think you can see that, at a glance or otherwise. Plus the choice of genebanks to display is eccentric. And the Vavilov Institute is mislabelled.

Here’s the WIEWS map of genebanks with more than 10,000 accessions.

Can you tell, at a glance, which ones are flourishing?