Category: Genetic erosion

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Dams, damn dams, and accessions

Every once in a while a new dam dataset crops up. Dam, not damn. Well, maybe damn as well. Anyway, when that happens, I feel compelled to mash it up with accession locality data. Because if I don’t do it, who will?

The new dataset is the Global Dam Tracker, and you can download it and everything of course. It’s pretty easy to then upload it to Google Earth and play around with it. Including combining it with data on wild Oryza accessions from Genesys, for example.

On this map, the dams are shown in blue and wild rice accessions in red.

You can zoom in if you’re worried about the long-term in situ future of any given population.

Not for the first time, I wonder about the feasibility of one day automatically and in real time combining data from multiple potential stressors, including dams, to predict the risk of genetic erosion around the world. Something that AI should be able to do, surely?

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Brainfood: Why measure genetic diversity?

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Nibbles: Mugumu, Gates, Fixation, OSA, USDA, Panicum, Digitaria, Britgrub, Wheat, ICRISAT, Svalbard

  1. Blog post on the importance of the mugumu tree in Kikuyu culture.
  2. Alas, no sign of mugumu trees on the Kenyan farm visited by Bill Gates recently. But there were chickens, drought-tolerant maize and mobile phones…
  3. …and there may soon be crops engineered for nitrogen fixation too, if his foundation’s project with the University of Cambridge comes through.
  4. Speaking of maize, here’s a nice illustrated story of how the Organic Seed Alliance is helping farmers grow their own tortilla corn in the Pacific Northwest.
  5. To generalize and contextualize the above, read this USDA e-book on plant collections and climate change.
  6. Dr Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute just got a grant to study broomcorn millet domestication and dispersal in Central Asia. There may be lessons for present-day adaptation to climate change, says the blurb.
  7. There are probably lessons about adaptation to climate change also to be had from Kew’s work on fonio and other traditional crops in Guinea.
  8. I wonder if Kew boffins are also working on bere, perry and other endangered British foods though.
  9. It’s always nice to see someone first learn about genebanks, and how they can help with the whole climate change thing.
  10. Meanwhile, in India, ICRISAT gets a stamp, which however doesn’t look very much like India or ICRISAT to me. Plenty of broomcorn millet in its genebank, by the way.
  11. Plenty of seeds from the ICRISAT genebank in Svalbard, as Asmund Asdal will no doubt point out on 10 February.
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Brainfood: Sulawesi Warty Pig, Neolithic violence, Early cotton, Livestock poop, Pontic millet, Bronze Age opium, Sami shamanism, Wild chickens

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Nibbles: Fonio commercialization, Naked barley, Food books, Ag decarbonization, Nepal NUS, Millets & women, Crop diversity video, Maize god, Cherokee genebank, CWR, Japan genebank

  1. A Nigerian company is pushing fonio as the next global super-food. What could possibly go wrong?
  2. Personally, I think naked barley has a better chance.
  3. Humanities scholars recommend their favourite new books on food systems. I bet there will soon be one on fonio.
  4. Food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute pens whole essay on how there should be public investment in moving agriculture from productivity gains to decarbonization without mentioning fonio.
  5. Well Nepal has orphan crops of its own and doesn’t give a fig for your fonio.
  6. Blogpost highlights the role of women in the cultivation and conservation of millets in Tamil Nadu.
  7. ISSD Africa video on the advantages of growing a diversity of crops, especially under climate change. Fonio, anyone?
  8. What does maize have to do with turtles? Gather round, children…
  9. The Cherokee Nation’s genebank is open for business. Maize available. No turtles.
  10. Long article on collecting, conserving and using crop wild relatives, including by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. Could fonio do with some diversity from its wild relatives? I suspect it’s not a huge priority, but maybe it will become one.
  11. It’s unclear how much diversity of orphan crops is in Japan’s high-tech genebank, but I bet it’s quite a bit. Fonio, I’m not so sure though. Maybe someone will tell me.