A lengthy post over at The Archaeobotanist on the mapping of human-affected vegetation — anthromes — has reminded me that I never did link to a great visualization of the last 300 years’ worth of agricultural intensification and spread. The common link between the two seems to be Prof. Navin Ramankutty of McGill University, who had a hand in the building of both datasets.
Nibbles: Protected area management, Yam domestication, Ottoman cooking, Measuring rice drought tolerance, Proteomics, Lupinus, Areca, Jethobudho, Nutrition megaprogramme, Soil bacteria
- Concentrating management practices on conserving a particular plant species may have bad consequences for other bits of biodiversity. Lessons for crops wild relatives?
- Benin’s farmers ennoble wild yams.
- A Lebanese lunch is an educational experience. Right.
- Paddyomics video. Nothing to do with the Irish. It’s about how IRRI is automating, er, everything about its phenotyping.
- Tamarind’s environmental niche is, in fact, er, niches?
- Different wheat genomes generate distinct protein profiles.
- Phylogenetic relationships of a new Mediterranean lupin.
- Betel nut chewing endangers coral. Kinda. Traditional and all that, but an unpleasant habit nonetheless.
- Our friend Bhuwon and others tell the story of the participatory improvement and formal release of Jethobudho rice landrace in Nepal.
- CGIAR elicits comment on the Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health megaprogramme. Until August 1.
- Bacterial diversity boosts maize yields.
Nibbles: FAOSTAT, Drought, Seeds, Helianthus, Coffee trade, CePaCT, Figs, Old rice and new pigeonpea, Navajo tea, Cattle diversity, Diabetes, Art, Aurochs, Cocks
- FAO sets data free. About time.
- Presentation on drought risk and preparedness around the world. Nice maps.
- A Facebook for seeds?
- The diversity of Jerusalem artichoke. In France.
- Coffee certification 101.
- Nice plug for SPC’s Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees.
- The fig of choice in San Francisco.
- Back to traditional rice varieties in India. But forward to new pigeonpea varieties in Malawi. Go figure.
- Navajo tea. Would love to try it.
- “The mixed (east-west) affiliation of Mongolian cattle parallels the mixed affiliation of Mongolians themselves.”
- Lancet article mentions Lois Englberger and her Go Local work in the Pacific in context of diabetes epidemic in Asia-Pacific.
- Edible art.
- More on bringing back the aurochs. Does anyone really want one, though?
- Great variety of rare and exotic poultry breeds. Temptation to pun smuttily averted, mostly.
Nibbles: Climate change, Monitoring, Evaluation, Vegetables, FAO newsletters, Guardians
- Climate change to bring lemons in Kent. Now for the bad news.
- Monitoring biodiversity in Africa and India.
- More Free Air Concentration Enrichment (FACE) research facilities needed, say those who work there.
- Ethnic vegetables? Yep, you heard me.
- Non-Wood Forest Products and Plant Breeding newsletters are out. Subscribe already!
- W.S. Merwin: poet and Guardian of Biodiversity.
Sheep at Floatingsheep and among the Navajo
Floatingsheep.org is a great website “dedicated to mapping and analyzing user generated Google Map placemarks.” Always fun, it occasionally even tackles agrobiodiversity issues. I’m still waiting for the guys to look at the distribution of the crops of the world, but for now I’ll have to settle for livestock. Here’s a quick look. There are closeups of different regions on the original post.
Those sheep hotspots in Arizona and New Mexico are no doubt due to the revival of the Navajo’s churro, the subject of an NPR story yesterday. And of one of our longer posts some months back. Yep, nothing much gets past us.