To corridor or not to corridor

Exhibit A

The fact that distribution change occurs predominantly through spatially restricted, local population processes suggests that the development of ecological networks may be an effective conservation strategy for plant species in the UK (Lawton et al. 2010). An ecological network comprises sites which collectively contain the diversity and area of habitat needed to support species and which have ecological connections between them. The UK is largely made up of semi-natural habitats shaped by human land use, and so consequently, much of the UK’s wildlife is restricted to small fragmented areas of high habitat quality. These can rarely be restored to large unbroken areas of natural habitat. However, making connections between them through wildlife corridors and smaller ‘stepping stone’ sites is a much more feasible option, which would improve species ability to track environmental change through short-range colonisation (Hilty, Lidicker & Merenlender 2006).

Exhibit B

…constraints imposed by climatic variability, limited dispersal and low persistence may mean that even habitat corridors through high-quality habitat may not in themselves make range shifts possible. Additionally, corridors for species that show high uncertainty between climate paths under different GCMs are less likely to be effective.

These are from papers in Journal of Ecology and Ecology Letters published within days of each other, though admittedly one dealing with plant species in Britain the other with amphibians in the USA. So what’s a poor boy to do? Stop thinking there’s one solution for everything, I suppose. And get everything into ex situ just in case.

Nibbles: IRRI impact, Peruvian food, Nutritional strategy, Ethnobiology, Street food forum, Mulefoot hogs, Polyculture, Cheeses, Asimina triloba, Protected areas

Brainfood: Breeding resistance, Pastures, Wheats, Dates, Conservation, Habitats, Old olives, Spinach selection, Maize breeding

Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way.

Building a plant conservation toolkit

70 per cent of the genetic diversity of crops including their wild relatives and other socio-economically valuable plant species conserved, while respecting, preserving and maintaining associated indigenous and local knowledge.

That would be Target 9 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, and we are all fully behind it, and all the others, of course. How to do it, though? Well, the new Plants 2020 website is planning to provide a toolkit in due course. ((Not a clearing-house, I am advised.)) When? Well:

Please check back regularly for updates and new information.

Ugh. Yep. No RSS feed. Look, I know I’m nay-saying again, and that it’s really boring. But no RSS feed these days is just not on. I hope they’ll fix that soon because this will be an important resource, and I want to keep up to date without having to check back regularly.

Nibbles: Collecting, US heirlooms, Sequencing NUS, Nutrition strategies, Potatoes and climate change, Italian genetics

  • NSF re-invents the genebank wheel. No, that’s unfair, they’ve given much-needed money to evolutionary scientists to go out and collect seeds of 34 species in a really pernickety way.
  • Heirlooms being lost (maybe) and being re-found in the US. Thanks to Eve (on FB) for both.
  • A Cape tomato by any other name…
  • Gates Foundation has a new nutrition strategy. Gotta admire the chutzpah of summarizing the thing in basically half a side of A4. Compare and contrast, both as to content and presentation, with the CGIAR. Unfair again, I know, but that’s the kind of mood I’m in. Jess unavailable for comment.
  • Very complicated, very pretty maps about potatoes and climate change.
  • “I failed to notice substantial contributions to discussions or presentations from breeders or seed organizations, the end users of so much of the research discussed.” Pat Heslop Harrison calls ’em like he seems ’em.