Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Well, not quite. But some of their DNA is. A paper just out in PLoS ONE has found two mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (the ones labelled R and P in the diagram below) which apparently got into Italian local breeds from “European aurochsen [haplogroup E] as the result of sporadic interbreeding events with domestic herds grazing in the wild.” Some of these breeds are rare and marginalized, though, so even the last remnants of the aurochs might be in danger.
Shahid Naeem’s ((Professor of Ecology, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University. See him in action.)) article “Lessons from the Reverse Engineering of Nature” is long, complicated and, in the end, a bit too esoteric for my taste. It also contains a couple of unnecessarily dismissive references to genebanks. But it is worth sticking with for a section which occurs about half way through, and one paragraph in particular.
After describing a number of experiments in which researchers re-created a particular ecosystem, varying only the overall level of biodiversity (this is what he means by reverse engineering nature), Naeem says:
In spite of the limited number of species and tiny numbers of combinations involved, these studies have been stunningly successful at demonstrating that greater diversity means more biomass, more production, greater retention of nutrients, greater resistance to invasive species, greater resistance to the spread of plant pathogens and greater stability.
He goes on to quote a formal meta-analysis, but that succinct summary is definitely worth having to hand the next time someone asks you what species are good for. Naeem is pretty good on the mechanisms too.
Biodiversity loss can affect ecosystem functioning for many reasons, but two keep emerging from the research. First, the more species one removes, the greater the probability that an extraordinarily important species will be lost. But there is a second reason that biodiversity loss reduces ecosystem function: complementarity. The more species you have, the more ways they make use of limited resources such as light, water, nutrients and space.
And what goes for ecosystems goes for agroecosystems, right? Right.
The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership has relaunched its website. Not earthshattering news, I agree, but a good opportunity to remind ourselves that, perhaps surprisingly, the list of indicators includes one on ex situ crop collections and another on genetic diversity of terrestrial domestic animals. There’s also an indicator tracking the contribution of biodiversity to nutrition, and another looking at the area of sustainably managed agricultural ecosystems. All in all, not bad for agrobiodiversity. Must have taken a lot of lobbying, though.
From our friend Ola Westengen.
Thanks to the announcement on this blog I learned that the Linnean Society were having a meeting entitled “The Future of Plant Genetic Resources.” When I saw the list of speakers a couple of names triggered me to search the dark corners of my budget, were I found just enough for a cheap return ticket to London. It was definitely worth the trip. I owe you a report, and I actually intended to write one up on the flight back, but the wine reception at the end of the meeting took its toll on my concentration.
So now, three days later, instead of decoding my notes from the many excellent talks, I’ll just direct you to the “Abstract book.” I wish I also could show you some of the great pictures in Sandra Knapp’s presentation, such as the one where Professor Jack Hawkes crosses an Andean river with the water waist high — still with his hat and tie on. Jack Hawkes definitely deserves his prominent place in the PGR pantheon, and his formative role for collecting, taxonomy, conservation and policy in this field was highlighted by several speakers. Quite a few, but not the majority, of the talks centered around the Solanum genus and the potatoes. The taxonomists are still arguing about splitting and lumping in the cultivated potato’s extended family, but no one disputes the important contribution made by Jack Hawkes, which still seems to serve as the baseline. Molecular markers are elusive stuff compared to the morphological characters recognized by the trained eye of an aficionado.
Actually, traditional molecular marker studies took a beating from more than one speaker, including by the new King of Corn, Ed Buckler, on some pretty breathtaking methods and results with implications for genetics that go far beyond that even the world’s most produced cereal. Did you know that two lines of maize are in average as divergent from each other as humans are from chimpanzees? Think about that the next time you eat popcorn at the zoo.
The Scottish Crop Research Institute was represented with three good talks, two on potatoes and one on an awesome barley landrace study done with ICARDA. The results will soon be published, and if you fancy beer and other barley products you should keep an eye on their website. PGR collectors, like few other scientists, can claim that their work lives on after they are gone. While Jack Hawkes’ legacy is indisputable, his potatoes are still flowering in the fields of the world’s genbanks. The Commonwealth Potato Collection sports a great website where these flowers can be seen online. Some of you will appreciate their use of Google Earth on their accession list. Check out the abstracts for more. Thanks to the Linnean Society for organizing this inspiring meeting and thanks to the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog for making it known! At least to me.
It has recently emerged that some Australian vine growers have been growing Savagnin Blanc (Traminer), an obscure French variety from the Jura, rather than what they thought they had planted, the considerably sexier Spanish grape Albarino. Apparently, CSIRO was sent mis-labelled cuttings by the National Germplasm Collection of Spain, a mistake that was spotted only after DNA work. It’s all explained, with what I suspect is relish, in an article in the New Zealand Herald. ((The problem seems to have surfaced in the press back in April, but we missed it at the time.)) Just the latest in a long line of trans-Tasman wine spats.
For the Australian winegrowers that have planted the 150ha currently in production in the country, this discovery is a blow as while there’s demand for albarino, the profile of savagnin – which they must now label wines made from these vines – is considerably lower.
As the article points out, not all such errors in identification are bad news.
Over a decade ago in Chile, another case of confusion proved more fruitful when what the Chileans had previously considered merlot actually turned out to be carmenere. This “lost grape of Bordeaux” was virtually extinct until it was found alive and growing very well among the merlot in Chile. It was a situation that inadvertently preserved the variety and led to the New World wine-producing nation to embrace it as a real point of difference and claim it as its flagship variety.
DNA fingerprinting should put a stop to this, of course. But as there are “5000 wine grape varieties with over 20,000 different monikers,” at least according to the article, it may be a while until cases of vine mistaken identity are things of the past.