- Someone else has looked at Food Insecurity in the World 2011 … so we don’t have to.
- That Kenyan meeting on Knowledge exploration agricultural biodiversity, resilience and transformation starts this week.
- 17th meeting of the Assembly of European National Coordinators for Animal Genetic Resources. 17th? Wow.
Aggregating taxon data online
At first I just wanted to Nibble it. “Alien plants in urban nature reserves: from red-list species to future invaders?” 1 looks at the effect of invasive plant species on the flora of 48 protected areas in the city of Prague. I was going to ask how many crop wild relatives are to be found in those reserves and leave it at that. Oh, ok maybe also make a throwaway comment along the lines of: In other news, Prague has 48 nature reserves. But I think it may be worth additionally pointing out an interesting feature that comes from publishing in the free-access journal NeoBiota. If you click on any of the taxon names in the HTML version of the paper you get a so-called PENSOFT Taxon Profile. What that seems to do is aggregate in a really attractive way a whole bunch of content on the species in question from everything from GBIF to Wikipedia to Google Scholar. You can create your own taxon profile if a species you really want to know about isn’t named in the paper you’re looking at. Compare to how the Crop Wild Relatives Portal does it. Good and less good things in both, I suppose. I like the way PENSOFT actually gives you the GBIF map and the images, plus also gene sequence references. But the Portal includes SINGER, Eurisco and GRIN searches. 2 And not a factsheet in sight.
Nibbles: Map, Ice age nettles, Floral garlands, Land sparing, EU seed laws, FAO forecasts the future, Sugar, Vavilov
- Hey Luigi, wherever you are, here’s news of another map for you to pour (cold water) over.
- New Scientist on nettles that grow at the back of caves and that may be relict populations. Odd.
- Botanic Gardens Conservation International wants children to design “local” floral garlands for olympic athletes. Taking localism too far? What’s wrong with laurel?
- Journalist explores biodiversity vs food security arguments in Ecuador. It’s still complicated.
- Bifurcated Carrots is kind enough to link to the index for Replies to the Online Consultation on the review of the EU legislation on the marketing of seed and plant propagating material. Now, who’s going to do the analysis?
- FAO’s 1964 view of how agriculture would need to change in the following 20 years. Fifty years on, where are we?
- Not so sweet: the Samurais of Sugar.
- In Chicago next month? Go and see a play based on a book based on the scientists at the Vavilov Institute during the siege of Leningrad. Then write us a review?
Autumnal Berry go Round
Apologies. I missed the publication of September’s Berry Go Round botanical blog carnival over at a DC Birding Blog. A birding blog? Well why not, they are as dependent on plants as the rest of us. Of agricultural interest is a post on sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) in Berlin. Like baobab, sea buckthorn is everywhere. That’s superfruits for you. It even has fact sheets.
The next edition will be hosted at the slugyard. I do hope someone will have written something interesting about aspidistras. You can submit posts here, your own or someone else’s, botanical (sense latu) rather than gardening. And if you’re willing to be a host, drop me a line.
Nibbles: Vigna umbellata, Afghanistan wheat catalogue, Pingali, Camptotheca, Water stress, Organic Farming for Health and Prosperity
- Crops for the Future finds a nice ricebean project.
- The wheats of Afghanistan.
- A former ICRISAT intern speaks. The world listens.
- Collecting the Happy Tree of China.
- Global water stress maps. Does CCAFS know? Or care?
- Rodale hearts organic.