- Does the pressure for impact compromise research? Thought-provoking post from CIFOR’s Director General.
- FAO wants your opinion on the FAO/IPGRI List of Multi-crop passport descriptors. They probably don’t need you to tell them that IPGRI has changed its name. Or do they?
- Ocapoppin’ at Rhizowen acres; 100 varieties! I’ll alert the National Geographic.
- Sacred groves sustain bio-cultural richness in Yunnan forest. Still.
US national programme gets it together
The Plant Germplasm Operations Committee gets together every year to help the National Plant Germplasm System of the USA operate. It has just had its 2011 meeting in Beltsville, MD, with representatives from the national genebanks of Brazil, Mexico and Canada in attendance, and the presentations are online. They provide an interesting glimpse into the workings of a national system which in many ways serves the whole world.
Brainfood: Benin diversity, Catalan diversity, Serbian sorghum, Flowering in barley and sunflower, Potato nutritional quality, Cacao genebank management, Potato genebank management, Caribbean cattle, Venezuelan CWR, Ecogeographic surveys, Refugia, Vegetation change, Fisheries, Botanic gardens, Crop diversity patterns, Old trees
- Diversity, geographical, and consumption patterns of traditional vegetables in sociolinguistic communities in Benin: Implications for domestication and utilization. 245 species, from 62 families, 80% wild-harvested.
- Landraces in situ conservation: A case study in high-mountain home gardens in Vall Fosca, Catalan Pyrenees, Iberian Peninsula. 39 landraces of 31 species, disappearing fast.
- Origin, history, morphology, production, improvement, and utilization of broomcorn [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] in Serbia. Summarizes 60 years of experience.
- The timing of flowering in barley and sunflower dissected. In the former, variation in photoperiod sensitivity occurred both pre- and post-domestication. In the latter, variation is clinal.
- Cultivated and wild Solanum species as potential sources for health-promoting quality traits. Some of the latter are pretty good.
- Microsatellite fingerprinting in the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad: accession and plot homogeneity information for germplasm management. A quarter of plots were mixtures. Well that’s no good. Huge amount of stuff in this issue of PGR-CU.
- Construction of an integrated microsatellite and key morphological characteristic database of potato varieties on the EU common catalogue. So that the above doesn’t happen.
- Footprints of selection in the ancestral admixture of a New World Creole cattle breed. Lots of African and zebu blood in Guadeloupe cattle.
- Inventory of related wild species of priority crops in Venezuela. Basically a big list.
- Potential of herbarium records to sequence phenological pattern: a case study of Aconitum heterophyllum in the Himalaya. Could be used to flesh out the above kind of thing.
- Refugia: identifying and understanding safe havens for biodiversity under climate change. How to spot refugia past and future, which would be useful for the above-but-one kind of thing.
- Modelling biome shifts and tree cover change for 2050 in West Africa. Climate change leads to greening, human impact to browning.
- Comparison of modern and historical fish catches (AD 750–1400) to inform goals for marine protected areas and sustainable fisheries. Along the Kenyan coast. Amazingly, comparisons are possible, and they show a deterioration in quality and quantity.
- The biodiversity benefits of botanic gardens. They are there, despite their history with invasives, but gardens need to get their act together. Which they are doing.
- Domesticated crop richness in human subsistence cultivation systems: a test of macroecological and economic determinants. Number of crop species grown depends on latitude, habitat heterogeneity and commitment to agriculture (as opposed to foraging, herding and exchange). Can’t make up my mind if this is interesting or predictable. Maybe it is both. Would be great to apply same method to infraspecific diversity too.
- The age of monumental olive trees (Olea europaea) in northeastern Spain. Maybe over 600 years.
Nibbles: Beautiful models, Beautiful bank, Organic FAO, Eskimo diet, Indian medicinals, Maya nut studentship, Fishy infographics
- Official confirmation of the need for better crop growth models.
- More on CIP’s high-tech spud bank. In other news, CIP also has banks of other Andean roots/tubers, but don’t get me started on that one.
- “FAO has relegated organic agriculture to a footnote in the discussion of food security in the long run.” Fighting talk. Wonder if that will change with the new DG.
- Cook like an Inuit.
- Cultivating medicinal plants in India. Let’s see how that goes.
- Wanna study the Maya nut?
- More great Guardian infographics, aquatic edition.
- “This one tastes like cotton candy.” Breeding strawberries the hard way.
How to conserve animal genetic resources
And speaking of eloquent images, here’s another one, this time from the world of animal genetic resources conservation.
Ooops, no, that’s not the one I meant. It was this one:
Which comes from the draft FAO Guidelines for the In Vivo Conservation of Animal Genetic Resources. Lots more details there. Via CGN.