In situ

May 21, 2016May 23, 2016

SOTWP Day 2: Useful plants, plant health and invasive plants

Our friend Nora Castañeda summarizes the second and final day of Kew’s State of the World’s Plants Symposium. Here’s the first day if you missed it. Thanks again, Nora, and see you next year.

The second day of the SOTWP Symposium was also organized in three sessions: Useful plants, plant health and invasive plants.

Ann Tutwiler, DG of Bioversity International, started the day with the idea of super-superfoods: crops that can help targeting nutrition, adaptation and resilience at the same time. Tutwiler also accompanied her presentation with a review of the different the projects that Bioversity leads with underutilized crops and crop landraces around the world. After Tutwiler, I presented our work on the global priorities for improving the conservation of crop wild relatives in genebanks. Dr Claude Fauquet from CIAT followed me, and reminded the audience why cassava is an important crop for food security in Africa, and why it is also called the Rambo Root. Finally, Dr Olwen Grace from Kew presented her phylogenetic exploration of medicinal uses, and in particular her research on the chemistry of succulents.

After the (much needed) coffee break, Prof. Adam Kleczowski began the plant health session with a review of the impact of (appropriately) coffee diseases. Prof. Gary Foster followed with perhaps the presentation that caught the audience’s attention most, thanks to his particular style. He talked about how we’ve recorded plant pathogens and their impacts throughout history, including the expensive tulip bulbs infected with viruses during Tulipmania, and the devastating consequences of Phytophtora infestans in Ireland in the 1840’s. According to Foster: these did not only include the infamous famine, but also the movie Titanic). Prof. Sarah Gurr the presented her cutting-edge research on pests and diseases, including newly emerged diseases that may affect biodiversity and the need of having a more biosecure world, the distribution of crop pests and diseases (and its economic and physical drivers), and what’s going to happen with climate change. Closing the session, Tony Kirkham from Kew shared some of the challenges he and his team are facing in keep the trees in the arboretum alive, and their field observations on how climatic events are affecting the arboretum. Longer winters and summers, and shorter autumns and springs, are apparently not at all good for some of the species in the gardens.

The last session of the symposium dealt with invasive plants and some of the existing global policies for combating them. Dr Montserrat Vilà presented on the impacts of invasive species at the ecosystem level: in aquatic habitats, to pollination, and to phylogenetic diversity. Spoiler alert: it’s not good. Prof. Philip Hulme continued with his talk on the environmental costs of weedy-ornamental plant species, illustrated with the beauty of an invasive species in New Zealand: lupins. Hulme described how weed risk assessment in as an effective tool for controlling the spread of invasive species. Prof. Yvonne Buckley, from Trinity College Dublin, then presented her work on the drivers behind the success of exotic species in grasslands, the Nutrient Network (a global collaborative scheme studying grassland ecosystems) and how plant abundance in their native habitat can be used as a predictor of invasiveness. Closing the session (and the symposium), Dr Gerda A. van Uffelen provided some insights from a regional perspective on how to manage (and avoid) invasive species in Europe. The question is: does having a single list for all countries fit the need to prevent invasives, or can a country-tailored approach be more effective? The discussion continues…

Some final observations. On the organization, it would be great if future SOTWP symposia (the next is planned for 25-26 May 2017) could involve participants from outside the boundaries of the room, perhaps by video-conferencing to a wide audience. And with regards to the SOTWP report, it will be interesting to see to what extent it is actually used to identify gaps in botanical research, and therefore priority setting. And not just for crop wild relatives :)

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

SOTWP Day 1: Climate change, protected areas and extinction risk

In which our friend Nora Castañeda summarizes the first day of the State of the World’s Plants Symposium.

The first day of the Kew symposium was divided in three sessions: climate change, protected areas and extinction risk.

Dr Kay Havens from the Chicago Botanic Gardens opened the first session, presenting some of the responses that plants may display to climate change, such as: plasticity, adaptation and migration. Dr Havens recommended gathering seeds from the fringes of environmental niches, as a strategy to obtain useful adaptations to rapid climate change.

Following this, Dr Alistair Seddon presented his work on the relative response of ecosystems to climate variability. Prof. Sandra Díaz then described the major plant traits (and their combinations) that are currently dominant among plants. This is useful for vegetation and ecosystem modelling. Closing the climate change section, Prof. Yadvinder Malhi presented his research on the impacts of climate change on tropical forests. Did you know that logging can have a similar effect as climate change. You can find a comprehensive summary of Prof. Malhi’s research online.

Dr Iain Darbyshire opened the session on protected areas with his work on Tropical Important Plant Areas, followed by Lize von Staden and the technical approach that the South African National Biodiversity Institute is successfully using to establish in situ conservation priorities. Prof. William Laurance shared some of the considerations that should be taken into account for conserving plant diversity in natural reserves, including where roads and infrastructure should be built, the effectiveness of protected areas to meet their conservation objectives and the importance of connectivity between protected areas in the tropics. He introduced us to PADDDtracker:

We think of national parks and protected areas as permanent fixtures on the landscape, but recent research points to the widespread (but largely overlooked) protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD). In response, PADDDtracker.org is documenting the patterns, trends, causes, and consequences of PADDD. PADDDtracker.org allows you to learn about PADDD and share your experiences with the world: where has PADDD already happened? Where has PADDD been proposed? Why is PADDD happening?

The session closed with Diego Juffe-Bignoli from UNEP-WCMC discussing the contributions of protected areas to meeting international biodiversity targets (Aichi, GSPC and SDG).

For the extinction risk session, Prof. Quentin Cronk introduced the term “living dead” to describe those beautiful, large but lonely trees that are often seen in the middle of pastures (common in recently deforested regions). Living outside of their preferred ecological conditions and displaying no regeneration, they have little chance of long-term survival. Prof. Cronk was followed by Prof. David Richardson, who talked about the impacts of invasive plant species on native plant populations.

Then, Steve Bachman, one of the brains behind the Sampled Red List Index for Plants, presented current and future plans for continuing Red Listing plants, current advances in uploading assessments to the IUCN RedList, the need to increase the availability of data for assessing biodiversity threats, and approaches to improving the quality of data derived from citizen science. Prof. Vololoniaina Jeannoda closed the day with her presentation of the ongoing efforts to conserve the oviala — also known as the yams of the forest — in Madagascar. That’s crop wild relatives: more on that on day 2, as you’ll soon see.

May 16, 2016May 31, 2016

Brainfood: Banana GWAS, Yeast genebanks, Hybrid sorghum, How to intensify ecologically, Med pastures, Food services, Neolithic transition, Ploughing the savanna

A Genome-Wide Association Study on the Seedless Phenotype in Banana (Musa spp.) Reveals the Potential of a Selected Panel to Detect Candidate Genes in a Vegetatively Propagated Crop. One strong candidate gene, from 6 possible regions. And here’s the light version.
Yeast culture collections in the twenty-first century: New opportunities and challenges. Pretty much the same as plant genebanks.
Genetic variation in sorghum as revealed by phenotypic and SSR markers: implications for combining ability and heterosis for grain yield. Possible parents for hybrids identified.
Actionable knowledge for ecological intensification of agriculture. Look at the landscape, articulate trade-offs and don’t forget the social dynamics.
Taxonomic and functional diversity in Mediterranean pastures: Insights on the biodiversity–productivity trade-off. Somebody mention trade-offs?
Are the major imperatives of food security missing in ecosystem services research? Pretty much.
Reproductive trade-offs in extant hunter-gatherers suggest adaptive mechanism for the Neolithic expansion. Agriculture got you laid, but then killed you.
High carbon and biodiversity costs from converting Africa’s wet savannahs to cropland. Bad idea all round.

May 11, 2016

Nibbles: Fixing food, Diane Medal, Iraq Edens, Camel genetics, Disappearing horses

UNEP video on why we have to change the food system.
Garden Club of America honors breadfruit guru Diane Ragone.
Paradise spared. In Iraq.
No such thing as an isolated dromedary, DNA says.
Horses in Kazakhstan, on the other hand…

May 10, 2016

Nibbles: Banning bars, New genomes, Pepper revolution, Participatory breeding, Organic mead, Paying for breeds, Punica breeding, Cyperus in Egypt, Adansonia in Uganda, Cyclone trees

“Friends don’t let friends make bar plots.” Of course they don’t.
Friend also don’t let friends hype the carrot and cassava genomes.
“The food of the true revolutionary is the red pepper. And he who cannot endure red peppers is also unable to fight:”  chili con China.
Salvatore Ceccarelli, who should know, on the centrality of seed. And the guys from Experimental Farm Network would agree.
Yes, you can now have organic tej.
“In theory…the undoubted value of these natural treasures should be reflected in their price, which should rise steeply as they become scarcer… In practice, natural assets are often hard to price well, if at all.”
A “Himalayan solution” for pomegranate breeding.
Nutsedge definitely needs a new name.
First formal record of the baobab in Uganda.
Wind-resistant tree germplasm for the Pacific. Much needed.