Category: Genetic diversity

Posted on

Fun with Web 2.0 and genetic resources

This is awesome. I hate to get all airhead on you, faithful reader, and I know I’m easily impressed, but a little video “tutorial” from the folks at Gramene just blew me away. In less than four minutes — as long as you have a reasonably good internet connection and hardware — they give you a glimpse of what you can get through Gramene. Not merely genetic maps, snips, images, full DNA sequences, access to germplasm, phylogenies and taxonomies and what have you but also — get this — recipes! And nutrition!

The tutorial is well worth watching, to see how advanced these products can be. The site where the tutorial is hosted looks like it might be a very useful resource. And if I didn’t have real work to do, I know I could usefully explore Gramene itself for a day or two.

  • The tutorial is here.
  • Gramene is here.
  • I found the tutorial here.

Like I said, awesome.

Posted on

More on meta-analyzing diversity

You may remember a post a few days ago summarizing something of a milestone paper by Bioversity scientists and partners which analyzed ten years’ worth of data on the diversity of 27 crops on farms in 8 countries around the world. As you’ll see if you revisit the original post, there’s been interesting discussion of the paper in the comments section. But I’ve been engaging the writers by email as well and it might be worth recounting the gist of that conversation.

The main point, I guess, is that they consider the crux of the paper as not so much the discussion of how/why diversity is being maintained on farm, as the fact that the richness/evenness relationship makes it possible to estimate one from the other (though separately for different kinds of crops). They see this as establishing really quite a novel framework for discussing — and generating hypotheses about — crop diversity.

It seems to me the discussion has started already.

Posted on

Grape genomes galore

A little over six months ago researchers reported a high quality DNA sequence for the Pinot-Noir grape. ((Not, you will note, Merlot, which would have been way too easy.)) Now comes news that the USDA is planning to do a genetic analysis of more than 2000 additional grape varieties in its collection. These will not be full sequences. Rather, researchers will be looking for SNPs, ((Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, pronounced “snips”.)) places where the DNA sequence differs by just one letter between two individuals. These SNPs are most useful as markers that can be used to identify areas of the DNA that may harbour important traits. Breeders and researchers can use them to track the inheritance of specific traits; USDA singles out disease resistance and berry colour. And that will speed up the breeding of new grape varieties.

I know hardly anything about the world of grape breeding, but someone out there may be able to tell me: when was the most recent introduction of a newly bred variety that gained any traction within the world of wine-making? ((I’m told this type of question is called a bleg; using a blog to beg for an answer (not money).))