- Against the grain? A historical institutional analysis of access governance of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in Ethiopia. Culture, economics and politics.
- Early Pastoral Economies and Herding Transitions in Eastern Eurasia. Everything changed around 1200 BC. Starting in Mongolia.
- Genetic diversity within and between British and Irish breeds: The maternal and paternal history of native ponies. Diversity within breeds being maintained, global haplotypes well represented, but a couple of breeds pretty unique. Long way from Mongolia.
- Diversity buffers winegrowing regions from climate change losses. Gotta change your cultivars.
- Contribution de la biodiversité à l’éco-oenotourisme des vignobles héroïques: atouts et perspectives. You can’t change your cultivars.
- Marker-assisted selection in a global barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare) collection revealed a unique genetic determinant of the naked barley controlled by the nud locus. One genetic variant, from East Asia, makes barley naked.
- Morphological diversity within a core collection of subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.): Lessons in pasture adaptation from the wild. The Australian cultivars have similar morphological diversity to the core collection, and several morphological characters are probably adaptive.
- Genome-wide genetic diversity is maintained through decades of soybean breeding in Canada. After an initial decline, though, and there’s more out there.
- Evaluation of genetic diversity, agronomic traits, and anthracnose resistance in the NPGS Sudan Sorghum Core collection. 10% country subset of a 10% core subset of >40,000 accessions contains multiple anthracnose resistance sources, and lots of other diversity.
- Phylogeny and conservation priority assessment of Asian domestic chicken genetic resources. 7 clades, 3 centres of origin, northern Yunnan the highest priority for conservation.
- European and Asian contribution to the genetic diversity of mainland South American chickens. Alas, no evidence of a pre-Columbian Polynesian contribution. Yunnan, that’s another story.
- Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi affect the concentration and distribution of nutrients in the grain differently in barley compared with wheat. Differently as in opposite directions.
- Molecular and Morphological Divergence of Australian Wild Rice. Including a putative new taxon.
Nibbles: Genebanks & CC, Cherokee seeds, CWR art, Chefs & diversity, Plant Treaty, Beer!
- Another pean to genebanks from Mike Jackson.
- Cherokee Nation shares seeds.
- Mitsuaki Tanabe’s wild rice sculptures.
- Weird menus are the best menus.
- Despite everything “…the International Seed Federation (ISF) says the ITPGRFA remains the preferred tool for access- and benefit-sharing of genetic resources for plant breeders.”
- The proteomics of beer. And beards.
Brainfood: AnGR treble, Livestock aDNA, Wild cucurbit gaps, Indian crop diversity, Wild Argentinian spuds, Wild wheat, Tomato domestication, Enset systems, Duckweed collections, Peanut hybrids, Sweet potato leaves, Adaptation pathways, Golden Rice
- Enhancing the functioning of farm animal gene banks in Europe: results of the IMAGE project. Lots going on, but avian species in particular need more work.
- Conservation and Utilization of Livestock Genetic Diversity in the United States of America through Gene Banking. Over 1,000,000 samples from over 55,000 animals, representing 165 livestock and poultry breeds, collected over 60 years, more than 50% of rare breeds.
- Cryoconservation of Animal Genetic Resources in Europe and Two African Countries: A Gap Analysis. Out of the 2949 breeds registered in DAD-IS, 16% have material in genebanks, but only 4% have enough to allow breed reconstitution.
- Unlocking the origins and biology of domestic animals using ancient DNA and paleogenomics. How we got to the above.
- Distributions, conservation status, and abiotic stress tolerance potential of wild cucurbits (Cucurbita L.). 13 out of 16 taxa need in situ and ex situ work.
- Wild potato Genetic Reserves in Protected Areas: prospection notes from Los Cardones National Park, Salta, Argentina. Nice combination of in situ and ex situ.
- Agricultural intensification was associated with crop diversification in India (1947-2014). But only at country level, and not by much. At district level, crop diversity went down in rice/wheat areas and up in the south and west as oilseeds and vegetables replaced millet and sorghum. Doesn’t strike me as positive overall, diversity-wise.
- From population to production: 50 years of scientific literature on how to feed the world. Time for a bit of holism.
- Unlocking the Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of a Wild Gene Source of Wheat, Aegilops biuncialis Vis., and Its Relationship With the Heading Time. 5 ecogeographic clusters, 4 related heading time groups.
- Genomic Evidence for Complex Domestication History of the Cultivated Tomato in Latin America. Domestication of northerly migrating wildish material in Mexico rather than 2-step domestication in S America and then Mexico.
- Enset‐based agricultural systems in Ethiopia: A systematic review of production trends, agronomy, processing and the wider food security applications of a neglected banana relative. Better data needed, for a start.
- Worldwide Genetic Resources of Duckweed: Stock Collections. 36 species, no less. Need more?
- Realizing hybrids between the cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and its distantly related wild species using in situ embryo rescue technique. You need to apply growth substances to the pollinated flowers.
- The remarkable morphological diversity of leaf shape in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas): the influence of genetics, environment, and G×E. Genetics controls shape, environment size.
- Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers. Watch your context, and don’t forget governance.
- Golden Rice and technology adoption theory: A study of seed choice dynamics among rice growers in the Philippines. They forgot context. And governance. But let the author spell it out in a tweet thread.
Soil biodiversity assessments around the world
Alberto Orgiazzi, who a few months ago summarized global soil biodiversity mapping in a tweet, has done it again:
https://twitter.com/lultimoalbero/status/1219557466263998465
Time to join efforts indeed.
Nibbles: Cheese history, RethinkX, Cosmopolitan Chicken, Natural capital accounting, Supply chains, Healthy policies, NordGen
- Fruit flies facilitated the birth of the hybrid yeast that made cheese possible. Thanks, fruitfly!
- Ah, but an upgrade is coming: precision fermentation.
- How business can track its effects on biodiversity. Should it want to.
- How to make it easier, more profitable and more sustainable to bring healthy foods to market. Someone mash it up with the above?
- How to design policies for countries seeking to provide healthy diets. Someone mash it up with the above?
- 40 years of NordGen. Happy birthday! Then someone mash it up with the above…
- Celebrating poultry diversity through art. No need for mashing, just celebrate the weirdness.