Genetic diversity

June 19, 2013June 19, 2013

Dog domestication controversy growls away

Awesome, by @ewencallaway RT @mammuthus: Nice summary of recent research into dog evolution http://t.co/sZ92QM5wt4 (h/t @paleogenomics)

— Ed Yong is not here (@edyong209) June 18, 2013

Scientists investigating the transformation of wolves into dogs are behaving a bit like the animals they study, as disputes roil among those using genetics to understand dog domestication.

Sound familiar? Remember the chicken story? It’s a genomic jungle out there.

LATER: A jungle that goes way back.

June 18, 2013February 15, 2016

Varieties of climate change

Something is up, no doubt about it. First off, PBS in the US has a longish news report on how farmers in India “find promise in ancient seeds”.

Watch Struggling Farmers in India Find Promise in Ancient Seeds on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Strangely, although the farmers are able to find promise in ancient seeds, the report claims that seeds stored at IRRI in the 1960s are too ancient to be viable. Not sure how that works.

One of the protagonists of the PBS video, Debal Deb, crops up again in another video that came to light on the PAR website. According to PAR: “This film follows the construction of a new seed bank premises in Odisha, a venture that provides a potent symbol of Debal’s values”.

With the zeitgeist firmly embracing the idea of agricultural biodiversity, preferably ancient agricultural biodiversity, as a suitable response to climate change, it is good to be reminded that droughts are diverse too. David Lobell looks at two recent scientific papers on drought tolerance. One shows very little difference between specifically “drought-tolerant” maize varieties and other varieties without the drought-tolerance genes.

To me, there are a couple of possible ways to interpret this. One is that the newer varieties being marketed by companies are not really much better in general. Or these results might indicate that the types of droughts the newer varieties were designed for are somehow different than the type of droughts they were exposed to in this experiment. In particular, as we’ve discussed in prior posts, 2012 was a drought characterized by very high temperatures and vapor pressure deficits, the kind of droughts that one expects more of with climate change.

2012, in other words, was not just a dry drought but a hot drought. The other study David looks at compares the two kinds of drought.

What’s really interesting is how remarkably low the correlation between performance in “drought” and “drought+heat” is (0.08).

While not reading too much into either study, Lobell cautions that very hot droughts may require different kinds of varieties from mere dry droughts.

June 18, 2013June 18, 2013

Nibbles: Indigenous conservation, Rice and conservation, Amazon medicines, Organic products, Sustainable oysters, Cherfas at Seed Savers, Calestous Juma, Cassava website, Israeli agritech, Fragaria breeding, Catacol whitebeam, Weather sensors, FAO Commission & Conference, Amartya Sen

A toolkit to help indigenous communities do conservation. Should they need one.
On the other hand… Half of Japan’s endangered species hotspots are found in satoyama, which are under pressure. Compare and contrast with rice farming in Thailand.
Learn all about some medicinal plants of the Amazon, minus their scientific names. Not including runa tea. Lots of other opportunities out there, though.
Maybe even including oysters.
Jeremy no doubt to feast on the mollusc after spilling the beans on the EU seed regulations at the Seed Savers jamboree.
Wonder what Calestous Juma thinks of those regulations.
But I bet he (and his father, who introduced the crop to his region of Kenya) would like this cassava website to rule them all.
The Volcani Institute‘s gifts to the world…
…probably include new strawberries, but not this one.
Scientists straining, failing to find plant to meaningfully compare to the giant panda.
Bioversity does up its iButtons.
And gets a namecheck in a paean to the FAO Commission on GRFA on its 30th birthday. All this FAO stuff is because its Conference is on this week. I don’t suppose any of it will be more important than Amartya Sen’s speech.

June 17, 2013June 17, 2013

Brainfood: Maize rhizosphere, Climate change vulnerability, Heterosis squared, African forests, Sequencing genebanks

Diversity and heritability of the maize rhizosphere microbiome under field conditions. There’s a lot of it, but only measured in inbreds so far. One wonders about landraces.
The Vulnerability of Biodiversity to Rapid Climate Change. We should focus on increasing the adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems, but predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
The Capsella rubella genome and the genomic consequences of rapid mating system evolution. Sex is better with two.
Progress Toward Understanding Heterosis in Crop Plants & Genomic and epigenetic insights into the molecular bases of heterosis. It’s the allelic interactions, stupid. Now to make use of this.
Deforestation in an African biodiversity hotspot: Extent, variation and the effectiveness of protected areas. Protected areas have worked for the evergreen forest, but don’t forget the miombo! Would be intersting to know what this all means for crop wild relatives.
Comprehensive genotyping of the USA national maize inbred seed bank. Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen the future of genebanks.

June 10, 2013June 26, 2013

Brainfood: Maize domestication, Restoration success, Rare species, Pollinator loss, Diversity and productivity, Cacao/coffee & ecosystem services, Brazilian coffee, GM cotton benefits

Genetics and Consequences of Crop Domestication. The domestication bottleneck has consequences.
Evaluating Ecological Restoration Success: A Review of the Literature. There’s more of it going on. Evaluation, that is. Which is good. But still mainly from the USA and Australia, and not enough of the socioeconomic kind.
Rare Species Support Vulnerable Functions in High-Diversity Ecosystems. Ecosystems are distinctive because of their rare species.
Environmental factors driving the effectiveness of European agri-environmental measures in mitigating pollinator loss — a meta-analysis. We know how to lessen, but not how to mitigate, loss of pollinators.
Experimental evidence that evolutionarily diverse assemblages result in higher productivity. And the more distantly related the species, the higher the productivity gain.
A global meta-analysis of the biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits of coffee and cacao agroforestry. Agroforests better than plantations, but forests best of all.
Coefficient of Parentage in Coffea arabica L. Cultivars Grown in Brazil. Be afraid.
Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security. Turns out GM cotton has increased the income and thus improved the diets of adopting Indian farmers. Well, maybe.