Rethinking the Resurrection Initiative

EurekAlert! had a piece about the Resurrection Initiative a couple of days back:

While an international seed bank in a Norwegian island has been gathering news about its agricultural collection, a group of U.S. scientists has just published an article outlining a different kind of seed bank, one that proposes the gathering of wild species — at intervals in the future — effectively capturing evolution in action.

I guess the idea is worthy enough, but the article is unfortunately full of misconceptions about genebanks. I’ll just highlight the most egregious.

“In contrast to existing seed banks, which exist primarily for conservation, this collection would be for research that would allow a greater understanding of evolution,” said Franks.

Really? That will come as a surprise to all the breeders and other users of genebank materials.

“Typically, seed banks are focused on the preservation of agricultural species or other plant species of strong economic interest, say, forest species, forest trees,” said Mazer. This is to make sure that scientists can maintain a genetically diverse seed pool in the event of some kind of ecological calamity that requires the replenishing of seeds from a certain part of the world or from certain species.

Well, while it is true that most seedbanks concentrate on crops, they do also maintain samples of wild relatives of crops, though probably not nearly enough, and of wild forages. And there are major genebanks — such as the Millennium Genebank at Kew — which conserve only wild species. But it’s the second part of the quote that is perhaps most surprising. Although genebank materials have indeed been used in restoration, surely their most common use is as sources of genes for breeding programmes.

“The approach that we would use is not simply to collect seeds over various time intervals and to archive them, but in the future to raise them in a common environment comparing seeds that were collected in 2010, 2030, and 2050, for example,” said Mazer. “If we found, for example, that the plants that come from seeds that were collected 50 years from now flower much earlier than those that were collected today, we could logically infer that natural selection over 50 years had favored plants, that is genotypes that flowered earlier and earlier, relative to those that delayed flowering.”

That makes it sound as if genebankers never do any characterization and evaluation of their holdings. Raising seeds in a common environment is in fact a standard genebank operation.

Don’t get me wrong, repeated collecting of the same population is an interesting thing to do. We don’t have enough hard data on genetic change. It has in fact been done even for agricultural species, though not on the systematic basis proposed here. I’ve done it myself, revisiting southern Algerian oases from whence wheat had been collected 10 years before, for example. But to suggest that a different kind of genebank is needed to accomodate such an initiative is stretching it. Let’s make sure we are making effective use of the genebanks we already have. We’re having enough difficulty keeping those going on a sustainable basis.

Women’s Institute saves the apple

All this musing about worlds and grains of sand lately actually goes back to a discussion I had with Jeremy a few days back about whether or not it was worth nibbling a little piece on the apple fair which will take place this Sunday in the Millennium Orchard at Beverley Parks Nature Reserve in Long Lane, somewhere in East Yorkshire.

More than 40 varieties of apple are growing on more than 100 trees in East Riding Council’s 50-acre countryside attraction.

Unusual East Yorkshire varieties include the Hornsea Herring and Fillingham Pippin, which was found only in the Swanland area.

The council’s countryside access officers and members of the East Yorkshire Federation of Women’s Institutes (WI) joined forces to develop the orchard as a millennium project.

Worthy enough, but too parochial, Jeremy said. (Although he did in fact relent in the end.) And he’s quite right. English apples, for all their diversity, are not going to save the world like ones from Kazakhstan just might. And East Riding Council is hardly at the forefront of agricultural biodiversity conservation science. Fair enough. But I wonder if the Talgar Pomological Gardens in Kazakhstan and the Garrygalla Research Center in Turkmenistan might not have something to learn from the humble efforts of the East Yorkshire Federation of Women’s Institutes.

And vice versa, of course.

Nibbles: Worms, Cowpeas, Vavilov, Asian carp, Genebanks, Cassava

Equator Prize 2008 winners announced

The Equator Initiative, a United Nations-led partnership that supports grassroots efforts in biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation, has selected 25 winners of the Equator Prize 2008.

And here they all are. Lots of great stuff there on agrobiodiversity conservation and use. Somewhat invidious to single anyone out, but I can’t resist. Check out in particular the work of the Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi.