Genetic diversity

December 11, 2011December 15, 2011

Nibbles: Brand new tool, Baseline, Orange cassava, Food non-crisis, ILRI on the frontline, WorldFish

In recognition of the fact that I’ve spent the past week at CIMMYT up to my ears in the CGIAR, an all-CGIAR edition!

CCAFS unleashes hell. Well, Climate Analogues anyway. No, wait…
How does CCAFS measure impact anayway? Well, by documenting progress in adaptation relative to a baseline, of course. What I want to know is how the baseline captures within-crop diversity.
Meanwhile, HarvestPlus is having another impact of its own. Well, I guess we’ll really have to wait for the health studies to be sure, but anyway.
And speaking of impact, IFPRI now says that surveys show that the food crisis was not really a crisis for the poor, where simulations say it was. Now what?
ILRI remembers the visit of Angela Merkel, and, probably unrelatedly, discovers the joys of fermentation.
WorldFish got a brand new website. Does Climate Analogues work for fish?

December 6, 2011December 6, 2011

Tracking down White Park cattle

This call for information from Lawrence Alderson at Rare Breeds International just came through on DAD-Net. Minus the link, which I’ve added. Can anyone help?

The White Park is an ancient British breed of cattle. It was recorded at Dynevwr in the reign of Rhodri Fawr at least 1,150 years ago, and anecdotally maybe 1,000 years earlier than that. It is a distinctive long-horned animal, porcelain white with coloured points except for the tail which is white. It now is valued as a heritage breed, noted for its high-quality marbled beef and its efficiency of conversion of coarse herbage. It is endangered but has been exported to several countries including USA, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Germany.

A current project coordinated by Rare Breeds International is studying the degree of divergence between national populations. It already has demonstrated that descendants of cattle exported 50 years ago still have the same DNA profile as the current population in UK. In the course of this research RBI has discovered references in the twentieth century (1930s to 1990s) to White Park animals (also referred to as Park or English Park, and Ancient White Park in North America) in several zoological gardens in Europe, including Copenhagen, Prague, Riga, London and Berlin. We are interested to pursue further this thread of research to explore the possibility that the White Park was found more widely in zoological gardens. We request anyone with relevant information to contact RBI at rbisecretariat@mail.com and will be most grateful for your assistance.

December 5, 2011December 5, 2011

Brainfood: Early farmers, Ecological restoration, IPRs, Soil bacterial diversity, Perenniality, Carrot diversity, Earthworm mapping

Ancient DNA from an Early Neolithic Iberian population supports a pioneer colonization by first farmers. People, not just crops, moved.
Genetic consequences of using seed mixtures in restoration: A case study of a wetland plant Lychnis flos-cuculi. After a few generations of use for seed production, it’s best to abandon ex situ stocks and go back to the wild populations.
Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information. It’s complicated. I wonder if the multi-headed hounds who guard the gates to GBDBH are aware of this. Here’s a blog post.
Is diversification history of maize influencing selection of soil bacteria by roots? Kinda.
A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2012. Perennial cereals make the cut.
How pristine are tropical forests? An ecological perspective on the pre-Columbian human footprint in Amazonia and implications for contemporary conservation. It doesn’t matter.
Genetic diversity of carrot (Daucus carota L.) cultivars revealed by analysis of SSR loci. Western and Asian groups, the latter more diverse, because of landraces. But 88 accessions does seem a bit few. And no wilds.
Mapping of earthworm distribution for the British Isles and Eire highlights the under-recording of an ecologically important group. 28 species! But many gaps. No diversity map. Will send them DIVA-GIS for Christmas.

November 28, 2011November 25, 2011

Brainfood: OSP adoption, Milk quality, Passport data quality, Historical collections, Sweet potato domestication, African veggies, Baobab diversity and domestication, Cassava diversity, Strawberry breeding, Barley GWA, Pest symbionts, Maize diversity and climate change

A large-scale intervention to introduce orange sweet potato in rural Mozambique increases vitamin A intakes among children and women. Just 1 year of training worked just as well as a higher intensity intervention (3 years) in increasing OSP and vitamin A intake by younger children, older children and women, and decreasing prevalence of inadequate vitamin A intakes. OSP represented about half of all sweet potatoes consumed so I guess there was not complete replacement of local varieties.
Composition of milk from minor dairy animals and buffalo breeds: a biodiversity perspective. There are significant interbreed and inter-species differences. Dromedary milk is closest to cow milk, mare and donkey milk maybe the healthiest, but moose milk is the one I’d like to try.
Quality indicators for passport data in ex situ genebanks. That would be the genebanks in Eurisco. Verdict: not bad, but could do better. Most variation in quality is among institutes.
Exploring the population genetics of genebank and historical landrace varieties. Old samples of dead seeds of 4 crops in Swedish museum jars more genetically variable than genebank accessions, but it’s not the genebank’s fault. And at least their seeds are still alive. Also no genetic correspondence between geographically matched museum and genebank samples.
Combining chloroplast and nuclear microsatellites to investigate origin and dispersal of New World sweet potato landraces. Two areas of domestication, probably from a single wild progenitor species: lowland NW South America and lowland Central America/Caribbean. Genetic differences between these 2 genepools not accompanied by morphological differences, but then again nobody’s looked properly, and the current descriptors are useless anyway.
The significance of African vegetables in ensuring food security for South Africa’s rural poor. Their huge potential is being thwarted by evil extensionists. Ok, but don’t we need to move beyond that?
Comparative study on baobab fruit morphological variation between western and south-eastern Africa: opportunities for domestication. Hang on a minute, aren’t there a million factsheets about all this?
Marriage exchanges, seed exchanges, and the dynamics of manioc diversity. Kinship structures determine cassava diversity patterns in Gabon. Matrilineal societies have more diversity.
Interspecific hybridization of diploids and octoploids in strawberry. You get pentaploid and tetraploid plants.
Genome wide association analyses for drought tolerance related traits in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Ok, deep breath. Over 200 accessions, both wild and cultivated, from 30 countries, so quite variable, but also structured. There were some QTLs that differed between dry and wet sites, but they didn’t explain much phenotypic variation, and they couldn’t be related to previous work. So GWA not much use, probably because of population structure. But couldn’t that have been predicted? And isn’t it possible to do something about structure in the analysis?
Population genetics of beneficial heritable symbionts. Of insects, that is. Mostly proteobacteria. So my question is, could somehow attacking the symbionts form the basis of a pest management strategy?
Projecting the effects of climate change on the distribution of maize races and their wild relatives in Mexico. Many races and wild relatives are predicted to shift in geographic distribution. Unless of course agronomy intervenes. Teocinte taxa should be collected.

November 28, 2011November 28, 2011

Nibbles: Q&A, Zoopharmacognosy, Pigeonpea genome, Turkey, Wheat relatives

Everyday agriculture mysteries solved.
Other animals self-medicate too.
Dueling pigeonpea genome sequencers? Who knew. Well spotted, James.
I’m thankful for turkeys.
And for the crop wild relatives in ICARDA’s genebank too.