Genetic erosion

September 11, 2012September 11, 2012

IUCN and Microsoft map threats to biodiversity

“We’re building an application that allows people to map those threats spatially,” Joppa explains. “We’re trying to provide a repository of evidence for threats to species.”

Lucas Joppa is talking about a collaboration between Microsoft and IUCN to map threats to biodiversity. Worth keeping an eye on. But I wonder if they’ll consider agrobiodiversity too. If so, we have some ideas here at the blog. Anyway, presumably the thing will link up with GeoCAT in some clever way.

LATER: And also link to this? Or at least suck in the data?

September 10, 2012September 10, 2012

Brainfood: Wild soybean, Leafy vegetables collection gaps, Banana drought tolerance screening, Chinese soybean breeding, Malagasy coffee collections, Bacteria on beans

Perennial Glycine: A new source of genetic diversity for soybean improvement. The perennial wild species are genetically and geographically distant from the crop, but at least one can be crossed, with some difficulty, and some potentially useful genes have been enticed to make their way into the cultivated genome. To no great effect, but it’s early days yet.
Genetic resources collections of leafy vegetables (lettuce, spinach, chicory, artichoke, asparagus, lamb’s lettuce, rhubarb and rocket salad): composition and gaps. You can just read the collecting priorities for each genepool, or analyze the data yourself.
Screening the banana biodiversity for drought tolerance: can an in vitro growth model and proteomics be used as a tool to discover tolerant varieties and understand homeostasis? Maybe.
Development of yield and some photosynthetic characteristics during 82 years of genetic improvement of soybean genotypes in northeast China. Yield doubled, but at the cost of water use efficiency. Maybe those perennials could help?
An assessment of the genetic integrity of ex situ germplasm collections of three endangered species of Coffea from Madagascar: implications for the management of field germplasm collections. For 3 wild species, there’s lots of genetic diversity in field genebanks, but also lots of crossing with other species.
Diversity of culturable bacteria and occurrence of phytopathogenic species in bean seeds (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) preserved in a germplasm bank. “…the fact that potentially phytopathogenic bacteria have been preserved in a genebank should emphasize the importance of rigorous sanitary controls for plant genetic resources.” You think?

September 4, 2012September 3, 2012

OFSP steal the show

OFSP conspicuous by their absence in a Nairobi supermarket.

I said yesterday that orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (OFSP) were all the rage in early August, and I wanted today to provide the evidence. HarvestPlus mounted a well-coordinated and extremely effective media blitz. In addition to regular posts on Facebook and Twitter, there was a press release, an infographic and a brief. This all really paid off in terms of coverage. In particular, hardly a piece on the Global Hunger Event organized by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron to cement the legacy of the Olympics failed to mention OFSP. I don’t begrudge them this: OFSP are important .

But mostly missing among all the hoopla, alas, was any reference to the diversity of sweet potatoes available in the world’s genebanks, including as regards colour and nutrient content. And the possible effect of introducing these new varieties on the old ones still in farmers’ fields, and perhaps not yet safeguarded in said genebanks.

September 4, 2012September 3, 2012

Urban agriculture gets its 15 minutes

The World Urban Forum is taking place down in my home town this week. That I suppose was what provided at least part of the impetus for the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) to issue a statement on the Nutrition Security of Urban Populations. Not to be outdone, FAO has a publication out too, Growing Greener Cities in Africa, touted as the “first status report on urban and peri-urban horticulture in Africa.” A cursory glance doesn’t reveal much on diversity in these documents, but this is an issue that’s always intrigued me. Could cities act as magnets for crop inter- and intraspecific diversity? After all, they have lots of micro-niches, and have been attracting people from all over for decades, who could have come with their seeds. Is it possible that varieties could still be grown in cities after they’ve disappeared in their native areas? Or at any rate that crop diversity in a city is higher than in the surrounding countryside? Sometime ago we did a small survey of sweet potato diversity in Nairobi roadside verges that seemed to suggest that the menu of varieties was at least somewhat different from what was available in nearby rural areas. Should write that up one day. Anybody know of similar studies?

September 3, 2012September 3, 2012

What I read on my summer holidays

Yeah, summer is over and I’m back at work. Maybe you noticed I haven’t contributed much here in the past month or so. Or maybe you didn’t. Jeremy kept up a steady stream of agrobiodiversity nuggets pretty much all through August. But my lack of activity on the blog doesn’t mean I haven’t tried to keep up, as you would know if you followed us on Facebook, Twitter or Scoop.it. Anyway, for those that don’t, and would like to catch up on my summer reading, here is, in nibble form, what caught my eye during the past month or so:

“The potato is a religious commodity in America.” Explaining the governance crisis in the US using the humble spud.
Wait a minute though: “The sizzle seems to be gone from America’s long-term relationship with the potato.” Which apparently means it needs an extreme makeover, colour-wise. For which you’ll need a genebank.
A tree’s leaves can be genetically different from its roots. Does that mean we have to re-think all molecular phylogenies?
And speaking of a tree’s leaves, these ones are a thousand years old and give you a buzz.
A toff with a passion for pigs. P.G. Wodehouse had something to say about this, didn’t he?
Turns out WFP has a podcast. And ICIMOD has an RSS feed.
A mathematician factchecks Michael Pollan.
Pear with me please, while I tell you about another USDA fruit collection.
15 Africa-changing innovations include orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. As if they weren’t there before. Anyway, they were THE story for a couple of weeks in August.
12 food security innovations include increasing crop diversity. With orange-fleshed sweet potatoes?
How to put that banana genome to some use.
Getting the most out of your enumerators.
IUCN’s Conservation Campus. Any ag? And on a similar topic, training materials in anthropology.
Automating conservation assessment of plants. You’ll need provenance data from herbaria such as this one at CIP, of course. Oh, and speaking of CIP, they need a phylogeneticist.
A market opportunity for the mother-in-law?
Measuring the health of the oceans. Hey, but it’s not all bad for fish.
Ten species which rely on ex situ conservation. And why that number will go up. How to pay for it all, though?
Book on the recent history of agricultural research reviewed. I wonder if they looked at the private sector. Because it seems there may be a case to answer.
Another big grant for taxonomic databases. Ah but this is all going to be community-driven.
Looks like this Australian genebank could have done with a decent database, community-driven or not.