Genetic diversity

February 23, 2024February 23, 2024

Canaries in the genetic coal mine

Specialism in science being what it is, it’s understandably unusual to see papers which combine combine analysis of genetic diversity in humans over time with that of crops, or indeed livestock. It’s less understandable why it should also be unusual in science journalism, and examples should be celebrated. So hats off to Warren Cornwall for his very readable synthesis in Science of the history of human and crop genetic diversity in the Canaries over the past two thousand years. Well worth a read.

References

The genomic history of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands

The demography of the Canary Islands from a genetic perspective

Demographic history of Canary Islands male gene-pool: replacement of native lineages by European

An Evolutionary Approach to the History of Barley (Hordeum vulgare) Cultivation in the Canary Islands

Farmer fidelity in the Canary Islands revealed by ancient DNA from prehistoric seeds

Agriculture and crop dispersal in the western periphery of the Old World: the Amazigh/Berber settling of the Canary Islands (ca. 2nd–15th centuries CE)

February 19, 2024February 13, 2024

Brainfood: CGIAR impacts, Alternative ag, Landscape simplicity, Biocultural diversity, PPP, Bioversity & food security, Landrace legislation, Coffee ABS, Useful plants

The economic impact of CGIAR-related crop technologies on agricultural productivity in developing countries, 1961–2020. In 2020, modern varieties bred by CGIAR or developed by other institutions using CGIAR germplasm were sown on about 190 M ha, about 26% of the total harvested area of these crops in developing countries, and 43% of the total area sown with modern varieties for these crops in developing countries. Yes, cool, but…
Farming practices to enhance biodiversity across biomes: a systematic review. Less intensive practices generally enhance biodiversity.
Effects of landscape simplicity on crop yield: A reanalysis of a global database. Simplifying landscapes is associated with lower rates of pollination, pest control and other ecosystem services, and lower crop yields.
Biocultural diversity and crop improvement. Crop improvement can enhance crop diversity, but doesn’t always.
Collaboration between Private and Public Genebanks in Conserving and Using Plant Genetic Resources. Vegetable breeding companies can contribute to the conservation of crop diversity by public genebanks, but it takes work on both sides.
Eight arguments why biodiversity is important to safeguard food security. It’s not “stop hunger first, then worry about diversity afterward”. Or it shouldn’t be.
Landrace legislation in the world: status and perspectives with emphasis in EU system. Policy can support the conservation and use of landraces. Or not. It’s a choice.
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol: Implications and Compliance Strategies for the Global Coffee Community. Maybe they should consider the Plant Treaty approach?
The global distribution of plants used by humans. 35,687 of them, and their richness is negatively correlated with protected areas.

February 15, 2024February 15, 2024

The Coalition for Conservation Genetics is looking to grow

The Coalition for Conservation Genetics (CCG) brings together four field-leading organizations with a shared goal: Improving the integration of genetic information into conservation policy and practice.

If you think that sounds cool, consider applying to join. Deadline is 29 Feb.

This application is for potential new members of the Coalition for Conservation Genetics, or CCG. The CCG aims to better support policy and management of within-species genetic diversity globally, through outreach, coordination, dissemination, and engagement. We invite new members to help co-develop, plan and implement the future of the CCG as a global organization, and are excited to incorporate new vision, perspective, and leadership. We are seeking to expand our membership beyond high income and moderate-high income countries, and beyond mostly academic training, so we especially welcome applicants from, living in, and/or working in the Global South. Persons with government, non-profit, and indigenous and local knowledge or similar experience are also very welcome. Applicants do not need to be current members of the CCG founding networks (GEO BON, IUCN, SCB, and GBIKE).

February 13, 2024February 14, 2024

Nibbles: Cheese microbes, OSSI, Mung bean, Sustainable ag, Agroecology, Collard greens, African orphan crops, Olive diversity, Mezcal threats, German perry, Spanish tomatoes, N fixation

A sustainable blue cheese industry needs more microbial diversity.
The Open Source Seed Initiative gets written up in The Guardian. Looks like we need something similar for cheese microbes.
The Guardian then follows up with mung bean breeding and fart jokes.
But then goes all serious with talk of trillions of dollars in benefits from sustainable food systems. Diversity not mentioned, alas, though, so one wonders about the point of the previous pieces.
Fortunately Indigeneous Colombian farmers have the right idea about sustainability.
Collard greens breeders do too, for that matter.
More African native crops hype for Dr Wood to object to. Seriously though, some crops do need more research, if only so they can be grown somewhere else.
There’s plenty of research — and art for that matter — on the olive, but the international genebanks could do with more recognition.
The mezcal agave, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have much diversity in genebanks, and it is threatened in the wild.
Perry culture in Germany is also threatened. Pretty sure there are genebanks though.
This piece about tomato diversity in Spain is worth reading for many reasons (heroic seed saving yada yada), but especially for the deadpan take on the Guardia Civil at the end.
Maybe we could breed some of those tomatoes to fix their own nitrogen. And get the Guardia Civil to pay for it.

February 12, 2024February 10, 2024

Brainfood: Breeding edition

Climate-resilient crops: Lessons from xerophytes. Breeding for Na+ exclusion to improve salinity tolerance in crops has compromised their drought tolerance, but both tolerances are down to more gene copies in key families when comparing species.
Innovation and Technological Mismatch: Experimental Evidence from Improved Crop Seeds. Breeders should strive to give farmers what they want, even if it means releasing multiple locally adapted varieties rather than a single blockbuster.
Stressors and Resilience within the Cassava Value Chain in Nigeria: Preferred Cassava Variety Traits and Response Strategies of Men and Women to Inform Breeding. Man and women want different things from cassava breeders.
Intra-household discrete choice experiment for trait preferences: a new method. If only there was a new way to measure that…
Genome editing to re-domesticate and accelerate use of barley crop wild relatives. No word on whether men and women would edit different genes.
Understanding Genome Structure Facilitates the Use of Wild Lentil Germplasm for Breeding: A Case Study with Shattering Loci. I suspect neither men nor women would tolerate shattering lentils.
Repeat turnover meets stable chromosomes: repetitive DNA sequences mark speciation and gene pool boundaries in sugar beet and wild beets. But you can’t use wild species in breeding if you can’t cross them with the crop, and in beet that’s down to the repeatome. So maybe this would make a better case for domestication through gene editing than barley or lentils?
Development of trait-specific genetic stocks derived from wild Cicer species as novel sources of resistance to important diseases for chickpea improvement. Would be really cool to domesticate one of the really resistant tertiary genepool species.
Developing Genetic Resources Within the Chenopodium Genus to Advance Quinoa Breeding and the de novo Domestication of C. berlandieri. Not that you need gene editing for domesticating crop wild relatives.
Genomic traces of Japanese malting barley breeding in two modern high-quality cultivars, ‘Sukai Golden’ and ‘Sachiho Golden’. Old-fashioned breeding has been pretty successful, so who needs CWR, gene editing and discrete choice experiments? ((Last bit added purely for clicks, I’m desperate.))
Consistent effects of independent domestication events on the plant microbiota. I hope all those gene-editing de novo domesticators are considering the novo microbiomes.