- Nutrition and culture in professional football: A mixed method approach. Footballers need a more diverse diet. Well, kinda. I just wanted to get this paper in here because wouldn’t it be cool if we could get Lionel Messi to talk about agrobiodiversity-rich diets?
- Diversity analysis using ISSR markers for resistance to shoot pests in sorghum. There may be a diversity of resistance mechanisms.
- Domestication of Alpine blue-sow-thistle (Cicerbita alpina (L.) Wallr.): six year trial results. I know. Why would you want to, right? Takes all sorts to make a diverse diet, I guess. Maybe we can get Lionel Messi to eat it?
- Improving representativeness of genebank collections through species distribution models, gap analysis and ecogeographical maps. Fancy GIS-based prioritization results in more, better germplasm collecting. Nice to have the data.
- Evolutionary Plant Breeding in Cereals—Into a New Era. Martin Wolfe and colleagues lay it on the line; why it is a good idea, and what the obstacles are.
- Genetic interactions influence host preference and performance in a plant-insect system. Aphids and barleys have genetic preferences for one another.
- Pasture area and landscape heterogeneity are key determinants of bird diversity in intensively managed farmland. As in the northern hemisphere, so too in Argentina.
- Tree diversity and conservation value of Ngovayang’s lowland forests, Cameroon. Both high, and I’m betting some economically important trees are among them.
Brainfood: Ectomycorrhiza, Synthetic peanuts, Ancient Greek amphorae, European bison, Pea breeding, Animal domestication
- Ectomycorrhizas and climate change. One more damn thing to worry about.
- Meiotic analysis of the hybrids between cultivated and synthetic tetraploid groundnuts. It’s normal. The meiosis I mean. Why isn’t this sort of thing done with more crops?
- Aspects of Ancient Greek trade re-evaluated with amphora DNA evidence. More than just wine and olive oil.
- Reconstructing range dynamics and range fragmentation of European bison for the last 8000 years. More eastern and northern than thought, and more affected by the spread of farming than climate change in the Holocene.
- Resistance to downy mildew (Peronospora viciae) in Australian field pea germplasm (Pisum sativum). It comes from Afghanistan.
- Deciphering the genetic basis of animal domestication. Despite all that selection and all those bottlenecks, they really are diverse.
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here.
Nibbles: Map, Ice age nettles, Floral garlands, Land sparing, EU seed laws, FAO forecasts the future, Sugar, Vavilov
- Hey Luigi, wherever you are, here’s news of another map for you to pour (cold water) over.
- New Scientist on nettles that grow at the back of caves and that may be relict populations. Odd.
- Botanic Gardens Conservation International wants children to design “local” floral garlands for olympic athletes. Taking localism too far? What’s wrong with laurel?
- Journalist explores biodiversity vs food security arguments in Ecuador. It’s still complicated.
- Bifurcated Carrots is kind enough to link to the index for Replies to the Online Consultation on the review of the EU legislation on the marketing of seed and plant propagating material. Now, who’s going to do the analysis?
- FAO’s 1964 view of how agriculture would need to change in the following 20 years. Fifty years on, where are we?
- Not so sweet: the Samurais of Sugar.
- In Chicago next month? Go and see a play based on a book based on the scientists at the Vavilov Institute during the siege of Leningrad. Then write us a review?
Nibbles: Vigna umbellata, Afghanistan wheat catalogue, Pingali, Camptotheca, Water stress, Organic Farming for Health and Prosperity
- Crops for the Future finds a nice ricebean project.
- The wheats of Afghanistan.
- A former ICRISAT intern speaks. The world listens.
- Collecting the Happy Tree of China.
- Global water stress maps. Does CCAFS know? Or care?
- Rodale hearts organic.
In the land of serendip
Luigi briefly drew attention to the latest offering from our friends at Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security: the Adaptation and Mitigation Knowledge Network. And that — along with all the other maps that seem to have been springing up whenever one’s back is turned — reminded me of a map passage from a little-known Lewis Carroll book, Sylvie and Bruno. ((Well, little known compared to Alice, say.)) Looking for the exact quote, I discovered that it had appeared yesterday in the daily blog of the august Paris Review. ((The internets are a wonderful place, except when they aren’t. And the whole post is worth reading.))
Toward the end of Lewis Carroll’s endlessly unfurling saga Sylvie & Bruno, we find the duo sitting at the feet of Mein Herr, an impish fellow endowed with a giant cranium. The quirky little man regales the children with stories about life on his mysterious home planet.
“And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr. “The farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”
Revisiting the passage in question, I discovered that it involves farmers, which entirely justifies me using it here. My real purpose, though, was to disagree gently with Luigi’s complaint that “You can’t really share the AMKN maps” Why would you want to? The map, after all, is little more than an index, like at the back of a book, that adds geography to content to help you find something you’re looking for.
If I wanted to draw your attention to a bit of a book, I wouldn’t point you to “line 36 on page 304” when that’s the entry in the index. I’d point you directly to page 211, where the bit in question resides. Same with the map. Why embed a bit of the map, when all it really does is point you to content elsewhere?
I had hoped there’d be something in the map around Baku, which I would then have taken a screenshot of ((As suggested by the mapmaker himself.)) to illustrate my point and pique Luigi further. But apparently there is no knowledge of climate change adaptation and mitigation happening anywhere CCAFS doesn’t work, which I’m sure is just a coincidence.