- Genetics and Consequences of Crop Domestication. The domestication bottleneck has consequences.
- Evaluating Ecological Restoration Success: A Review of the Literature. There’s more of it going on. Evaluation, that is. Which is good. But still mainly from the USA and Australia, and not enough of the socioeconomic kind.
- Rare Species Support Vulnerable Functions in High-Diversity Ecosystems. Ecosystems are distinctive because of their rare species.
- Environmental factors driving the effectiveness of European agri-environmental measures in mitigating pollinator loss — a meta-analysis. We know how to lessen, but not how to mitigate, loss of pollinators.
- Experimental evidence that evolutionarily diverse assemblages result in higher productivity. And the more distantly related the species, the higher the productivity gain.
- A global meta-analysis of the biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits of coffee and cacao agroforestry. Agroforests better than plantations, but forests best of all.
- Coefficient of Parentage in Coffea arabica L. Cultivars Grown in Brazil. Be afraid.
- Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security. Turns out GM cotton has increased the income and thus improved the diets of adopting Indian farmers. Well, maybe.
Nibbles: Pretty, Peak soil, Wine history, Ancient foodways, Offal, Durian, Exotic plant foods, Cassava, Mozzarella, Nutrition report, Superfoods
- Jules Pretty meditates on the impermanence of things.
- Like soil. And bumblebees.
- Ah, well, let’s not get maudlin. Pass the bottle. Well looky here. The French got wine from the Italians. I feel better already.
- And Canadians had clam gardens a thousand years ago. Probably still do, actually.
- Along with offal, no doubt. Which did not, however, seem to play any role in a recent Mesolithic dinner. Though French wine did. Which is weird.
- The best fruit in the world gets the Kew treatment.
- And is included in a weird list of the 100 weirdest food plants.
- Cassava‘s pretty weird too.
- The best cheese in the world is not French either.
- All of which foods no doubt feature in FAO’s new report on nutrition. Which is really important, so don’t let the flippancy fool ya. The Lancet agrees. And you can do your bit too.
- Ah, but does quinoa feature in that FAO report? The backlash continues…
Brainfood: Grass evolution, Great Lakes fisheries, African cassava, Sustainable UK farms, USA biodiversity loss, PVS, Agriculture to the rescue
- Evidence for recent evolution of cold tolerance in grasses suggests current distribution is not limited by (low) temperature. Geography a better predictor of cold tolerance than phylogeny.
- May we eat biodiversity? How to solve the impasse of conservation and exploitation of biodiversity and fishery resources. We may, if we all agree.
- Genetic diversity of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) landraces and cultivars from southern, eastern and central Africa. There isn’t any.
- Evidence of sustainable intensification among British farms. Amazingly, there is some, and aiming to increase profitability can get you there.
- Key areas for conserving United States’ biodiversity likely threatened by future land use change. To the tune of 5-8% area loss, and not counting climate change. Would be interesting to know what that will do to crop wild relatives.
- Dilemma in participatory selection of varieties. If it’s a one-time deal, as it often is, it ain’t gonna work.
- Green Revolution research saved an estimated 18 to 27 million hectares from being brought into agricultural production. And saved 2 million ha of forest. But less than Borlaug thought. More on “Agricultural innovation to save the environment” from PNAS.
Nibbles: Germany edition
- Why blogging has been light this week. And also, which resulted in this. Thirsty work …
- Which is why I love our new hosts (see above).
- There’s gotta be some of these around here.
- I know there’s a lot of these. And I have to say I prefer the beer.
- And as for the sort of things this guy made…
- I wonder how many crop wild relatives there are around here though.
- Or salmon.
- Ok, that’s all from here for now, but see you again soon.
Brainfood: Wild yeast, Sorbus evolution, Taro leaf blight, Vegetable sesame, Phast phenotyping, US CWR, Risk, Citizen science, GMOs, European meadow diversity, Hedysarum diversity, Pineapple diversity
- Introducing a New Breed of Wine Yeast: Interspecific Hybridisation between a Commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae Wine Yeast and Saccharomyces mikatae. The future of wine?
- Breeding systems, hybridization and continuing evolution in Avon Gorge Sorbus. You had me at “Avon Gorge, Bristol, UK, is a world ‘hotspot’ for Sorbus diversity.”
- Taro leaf blight — A threat to global food security. Yes, but we have the technology…
- Agromorphological characterization of Sesamum radiatum (Schum. and Thonn.), a neglected and underutilized species of traditional leafy vegetable of great importance in Benin. Yes, but we need the technology…
- Phenoscope: an automated large-scale phenotyping platform offering high spatial homogeneity. Somebody mention technology?
- An Inventory of Crop Wild Relatives of the United States. More than you’d think.
- Empirical Test of an Agricultural Landscape Model. The Importance of Farmer Preference for Risk Aversion and Crop Complexity. It’s not just about profit. At least in the UK.
- Using citizen scientists to measure an ecosystem service nationwide. Bullshit. No, really, it’s about the decomposition of cow pats.
- Intragenesis and cisgenesis as alternatives to transgenic crop development. Spingenesis.
- Managing biodiversity rich hay meadows in the EU: a comparison of Swedish and Romanian grasslands. Both need more input from local knowledge.
- Mediterranean Hedysarum phylogeny by transferable microsatellites from Medicago. Wait, Sulla? What happened to Hedysarum?
- Polymorphic microsatellite markers in pineapple (Ananas comosus (L.) Merrill). And?