- Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security. Probably not a bad list for agricultural biodiversity either.
- SNP genotyping in melons: genetic variation, population structure, and linkage disequilibrium. Two main population, 5 sub-populations, no surprises. Oh hum.
- Turnip Mosaic Potyvirus Probably First Spread to Eurasian Brassica Crops from Wild Orchids about 1000 Years Ago. Which corresponds to the expansion of agriculture in Europe as a result of a warming phase.
- The Prey Pathway: A Regional History of Cattle (Bos taurus) and Pig (Sus scrofa) Domestication in the Northern Jordan Valley, Israel. Domestication in 8th millennium, preceded by overhunting. And all figured out without recourse to DNA.
- The Effects of Isolation and Natural Park Coverage for Landrace In situ Conservation: An Approach from the Montseny Mountains (NE Spain). Do farmers in parks conserve landraces because they are isolated, or because they are in parks? Both, it seems.
- Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Doubling in food demand from 2005 to 2050 predicted. Current trends of intensification in rich countries and expansion in not-so-rich bad, moderate intensification everywhere good.
- Postglacial recolonization history of the European crabapple (Malus sylvestris Mill.), a wild contributor to the domesticated apple. Differentiation in 3 separate glacial refugia, then expansion and admixture at boundaries.
- Testing Surrogacy Assumptions: Can Threatened and Endangered Plants Be Grouped by Biological Similarity and Abundances? No.
- Characterization of Capsicum annuum Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Based on Parallel Polymorphism Discovery with a 30K Unigene Pepper GeneChip. The hot ones are more diverse.
- Agronomical use as baby leaf salad of Silene vulgaris based on morphological, biochemical and molecular traits. Some populations are nicer than others.
- Patterns of contemporary gene flow suggest low functional connectivity of grasslands in a fragmented agricultural landscape. When restoring a species at a site, it is better if the new population is near a large existing population.
- Using choice experiments to understand public demand for the conservation of nature: A case study in a protected area of Chile. Visitors willing to pay $2-9 per visit, depending on the ecosystem service provided, which didn’t alas include CWRs.
- Y chromosome analysis of dingoes and Southeast Asian village dogs suggests a Neolithic continental expansion from Southeast Asia followed by multiple Austronesian dispersals. Dogs arose independently in SE Asia and displaced older lineages to the N and W.
- More Stable Productivity of Semi Natural Grasslands than Sown Pastures in a Seasonally Dry Climate. Over the course of a year that is, presumably due to species diversity. And the odd tree helps towards the end of the dry season. Which is why ICRAF is all over it.
Brainfood: Cotton hybrids, Lentil drought phenotyping, Wild Prunus, Italian food discourse, Disturbance and diversity, Olive domestication, Rhizobium diversity, Intensification, Niche model uncertainty
- Interspecific hybridization in Gossypium L.: characterization of progenies with different ploidy-confirmed multigenomic backgrounds. They can be made, with some difficulty, and could be useful.
- A new phenotyping technique for screening for drought tolerance in lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.). In hydroponics. Seems to work.
- Polyploidy and microsatellite variation in the relict tree Prunus lusitanica L.: how effective are refugia in preserving genotypic diversity of clonal taxa? The island populations are particularly important.
- Trade-off or convergence? The role of food security in the evolution of food discourse in Italy. The food crisis had quite an impact.
- Diversity loss with persistent human disturbance increases vulnerability to ecosystem collapse. Suppression of fire in a species-rich grassland has resulted in a very low diversity but highly productive vegetation. Unfortunately, when you re-introduce fire, the whole thing collapses.
- The complex history of the olive tree: from Late Quaternary diversification of Mediterranean lineages to primary domestication in the northern Levant. Don’t forget the 3 refugia in Middle East, Aegean and Gibraltar. And, coincidentally, more.
- Isolation and characterization of salt-tolerant rhizobia native to the desert soils of United Arab Emirates. I hope someone conserves them.
- The compatibility of agricultural intensification in a global hotspot of smallholder agrobiodiversity (Bolivia). Peaches for cash didn’t do anything nasty to the diverse maize landraces. Which are in any case conserved ex situ, just to be on the safe side? Right?
- Detrital diversity influences estuarine ecosystem performance. Diverse mud makes for healthier seagrasses and mangroves.
- Conservation Planning with Uncertain Climate Change Projections. Gotta look at those sensitivities.
Nibbles: Fisheries, Aquaculture, Oman GR centre, Neighbourhood farm, Striga control, Quinoa blog
- Indonesians integrate biodiversity with development.
- Aquaculturists integrate catfish and tilapia with carp.
- Omanis want to integrate genetic resources conservation regionally.
- A community integrates around a neighbourhood farm.
- Integrated solutions needed for Striga? Push-pull, anyone?
- New blog aims to integrate quinoa into Chilean diets.
Nibbles: Farm size, Evidence-based policy, Priority sites, Tibetan grasslands, Sustainable intensification, Lipid improvement, Medicinal plants, Local fish, Wheat access, Purple yam,
- Small is beautiful. No, wait… And more from where that came, ahem, from.
- Evidence? We don’t need no stinking evidence.
- CIAT blogs about a workshop about a model about prioritization about populations about breeding about beans. While its peach palm thing gets picked up.
- Tibetan grasslands feel the heat. Not entirely certain why ICRAF should care, but it’s good to know.
- Peaches compatible with maize in Bolivian agrobiodiversity hotspot. Not nearly enough info in this release, will need to chase it up. And here it is.
- Rothamstead engineers lipids. But it’s for better nutrition, so that’s ok.
- Trad med in RSA.
- Fish as an ingredient of complementary foods. Nutritious, I’m sure, but I suspect Crocodile Dundee’s comment on the iguana applies.
- US wheat breeders worried about access. Maybe if the country ratified the ITPGRFA?
- Filipinos really like purple sweets, apparently. Here are some made of purple yam, ube, Dioscorea alata, call it what you will.
Brainfood: Vitamin C, Nutrition and health, European protected areas, Coffea diversity, Climate change modelling, Soil microbes, Niche modelling, Conflict, Human modified landscapes, Horse diversity, Pigeon diversity
- The challenge of increasing vitamin C content in plant foods. Surely not just because it is challenging?
- Health economics and nutrition: a review of published evidence. “[A]pproaches and methodologies are sometimes ad hoc in nature and vary widely in quality.” Ain’t that always the way.
- European protected areas: Past, present and future. The future will need to be different from the past.
- Genetic structure and diversity of coffee (Coffea) across Africa and the Indian Ocean islands revealed using microsatellites. Good correspondence with morphological species. Madagascar a diversity hotspot.
- Special Issue of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology on Agricultural prediction using climate model ensembles. There’s more than one way to identify a potential adaptation hotspot. Well that’s reassuring. Not.
- Changes in soil microbial functional diversity under different vegetation restoration patterns for Hulunbeier Sandy Land. Restoring desertified grassland led to more soil microbial diversity. Which is good because…?
- A review of composition studies of Cameroon traditional dishes: Macronutrients and minerals. 117 of them. Good for Fe, Zn, Mg.
- Essential elements of discourse for advancing the modelling of species’ current and potential distributions. There’s lots of methods, all quite different, embrace the diversity.
- Understanding and managing conservation conflicts. Build up an evidence base, and employ some social scientists to explain it.
- On the hope for biodiversity-friendly tropical landscapes. In the end, it’s about the agriculture. In more ways than one.
- Genetic Diversity in the Modern Horse Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNP Data. High maternal, low paternal during domestication. Low diversity breeds the ones you’d expect. Similar breeds the ones you’d expect.
- Genomic Diversity and Evolution of the Head Crest in the Rock Pigeon. Middle Eastern origins, Darwin vindicated. Again.