Information

April 26, 2017April 26, 2017

Mapping “flourishing” genebanks

The Atlas for the End of the World is a collection of maps and infographics covering two important subjects: the first is the amount of protected area in the world’s biodiversity hotspots and how these regions are tracking in regard to meeting 2020 United Nations (Aichi) protected area targets; the second is an assessment of which cities in these hotspots are growing on collision courses with remnant habitat and endangered species.

Nice idea, of course. And given their first aim, as described above, they didn’t really need to do anything on genebanks or botanic gardens. But they did, and here is the resulting map (click to enlarge).

And this is what they say about it:

Even at a glance this map shows the disturbing fact that while the hotspots are being drained of life, small zoological and botanical gardens seem to be flourishing.

Well, I don’t think you can see that, at a glance or otherwise. Plus the choice of genebanks to display is eccentric. And the Vavilov Institute is mislabelled.

Here’s the WIEWS map of genebanks with more than 10,000 accessions.

Can you tell, at a glance, which ones are flourishing?

April 25, 2017April 25, 2017

Exploring global diets

You may remember the paper Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security, which we blogged about a couple of times when it first came out in 2014. National Geographic did a pretty good job of visualizing some of the data online, but CIAT have blown them out of the water now with a fabulous interactive website.

You can listen to Colin Khoury, the brains behind the whole thing, on Jeremy’s latest Eat This Podcast. And you can read about the most surprising results on CIAT’s blog. Spoiler alert:

1. Almost everybody eats a lot more food than their grandparents did. And it’s more diverse.
2. African, Asian, and small island countries have the world’s most diverse food supplies. Also the least.
3. Crop immigrants are the key to dietary diversity.
4. The world’s average diet means eating like people do in Cape Verde, Colombia, and Peru.
5. Political unrest can lead to greater diversity in people’s diets, or less.

There’s also a companion piece by Colin on the Global Plant Council website. And this is what Colin says on his Facebook page:

We built a big data website! When we published our findings of increasing homogeneity in global food supplies, we hadn’t yet found a good way to make the underlying national-level data readily visible to interested readers. This is why I’m tremendously excited to announce the publication of our new Changing Global Diet website, which provides interactive visuals for 152 countries over 50 years of change. We that hope you will enjoy your own investigations of dietary change over time. Perhaps you can tell us where you think the changing global diet is headed.

If you do play around with the website, you can share any interesting stuff you find using the hashtag #changingglobaldiet on Twitter. Me, I’m going to have a bandeja paisa and feel like a proud citizen of nowhere.

April 25, 2017April 25, 2017

Nibbles: Treaty & UPOV, Minor millets redux, Maize replacement, Amaranth et al., Squash story squashed, Potato podcast, Food security webinar, Plants Day, Repast magazine, German beer, Coffee strategy, ILRI genebank

The ITPGRFA and UPOV need to sort out their connection.
Bring back our millets.
And our sorghum and pigeonpeas too.
And the milpa.
And speaking of milpa crops, the real story of that large, old squash.
Since we’re at it, bring back the potato too. To the people.
Yet another interesting webinar which I missed. Wonder whether they talked about the above. Anyone?
Still have time to prepare for “Fascination of Plants Day” on 18 May 2017, though.
Repast: “the First-Ever Food History Magazine”. ‘Nuff said.
Gotta love those German purity laws.
A strategy for conserving coffee genetic resources takes shape. Now for the money…
New forages genebank opens at ILRI in Ethiopia.

April 24, 2017April 10, 2017

Brainfood: Tomato chemicals, Photoperiod, Grain phenotyping, Hawaiian ag, Domestication primer, Symbionts, Turkish wheat, Yam bean diversity, Crop health, Walnut diversity, Agrobiodiversity theorising, Sea pigs, NERICA impacts, Nutrient production

Multi-perspective evaluation of phytonutrients – Case study on tomato landraces for fresh consumption. Fancy maths proves different tomato varieties taste different.
Adaptation to the Local Environment by Modifications of the Photoperiod Response in Crops. It’s all down to a few mutations in all crops.
Evaluation of the SeedCounter, A Mobile Application for Grain Phenotyping. Seems like a lot of work to just be able to measure wheat seeds, but boys will have their toys.
Indigenous Polynesian Agriculture in Hawaiʻi. Both intensive and extensive.
How to make a domesticate. It takes a long time, and involves lots of genes.
Symbiosis limits establishment of legumes outside their native range at a global scale. Non-symbiotic legumes have spread further than symbiotic ones into non-native areas.
Wheat Landraces Currently Grown in Turkey: Distribution, Diversity, and Use. More than half of morphotypes (59%) lost since 1920 overall, but none in some areas.
Ecotypic differentiation under farmers’ selection: Molecular insights into the domestication of Pachyrhizus Rich. ex DC. (Fabaceae) in the Peruvian Andes. Separate Amazonian and Andean lineages, and P. tuberosum arising from P. ahipa.
Crop health and its global impacts on the components of food security. To better understand acute impacts, model systemic ones.
Climate-Related Local Extinctions Are Already Widespread among Plant and Animal Species. About half of about 1000 species showed local extinction.
Rethinking the history of common walnut (Juglans regia L.) in Europe: Its origins and human interactions. Expansion from glacial refugia, followed by human exploitation. Compare and contrast with Asia. Or read about the whole thing in AramcoWorld.
Agrobiodiversity and a sustainable food future. Apparently all you need to do to support the “use of biological diversity in sustainable agricultural and food systems” is to recognize that there are 4 interconnected themes: (1) genetic resources, ecology and evolution; (2) governance policy, institutions and legal agreements; (3) food, nutrition, health and disease; and (4) global change drivers with social ecological interactions.
Eastern Mediterranean Mobility in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages: Inferences from Ancient DNA of Pigs and Cattle. Anatolia to southeastern Europe and back to the Levant across the Bronze-Iron Age transition. The Sea Peoples had pigs?
Contribution of improved rice varieties to poverty reduction and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. NERICA adoption increased annual per capita income by US$4 per year from 2000, despite yields going down a bit.
Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis. Need to try to maintain production diversity as farm size increases. But let Jess Fanzo explain it better.

April 10, 2017

Animate the apocalypse

You know that paper entitled Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being, that we included in Brainfood a couple of weeks back?. The money quote was: “The indirect effects of climate change on food webs are also expected to compound the direct effects on crops.” Ok, well, you don’t have to read it. All you have to do is watch a 1.5 minute video.