- 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.
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.
Nibbles: Yarsagumba, Chocolate meet & dig, Beer dig, Mapping disease, Mapping language, Going digital, Urban ag meet, Weird citrus, CGIAR genebanks and more, Microbiome
- Off-colour jokes pumped out with abandon as Viagra fungus splashed all over headlines.
- Two of my favourite words in one conference: sustainable and chocolate. Can I get some archaeology with that? Yes, you can. Trifecta!
- Prefer beer to chocolate? We’ve got you covered.
- Sudden oak death mapping gets all interactive. Will nobody do something similar for agrobiodiversity?
- The geography of the onion. No, not The Onion. And not interactive.
- Go online, young scientist! Even if it involves giving banana research priority setting a Facebook page? Well, why not.
- Whoa, there’s an Urban Agriculture Summit?
- Citrus australasica? Seriously?
- CGIAR crown jewels safe at last. No off-colour headlines, please.
- Some genebanks doing ok, others not so much.
- Gut microbiome kinda sorta implicated in kwashiorkor. And more from NYT.
Nibbles: School genetics, Sigrid Heuer, Fungal sex, Rubber, Wine, James Scott, Sustainable diets meet, Food exhibit, EU and climate change
- Much may be made of a wheat gene-jockey, if he be caught young.
- Or rice gene-jockeys, for that matter.
- Lots of naughtiness going on in blue cheese.
- Hope those reprobate fungi are using sustainable Amazonian rubbers.
- Some wine with that naughty cheese?
- Learning Burmese, researching the deep history of crops. Meah.
- Start planning for the next sustainable diets symposium. Symposium is quite apt, isn’t it.
- Feast your eyes on Feast Your Eyes.
- European agriculture is totally prepared for this climate change whatsit.
Brainfood: Bumper bonanza, Old peas, Irrigated meadows, Cereal mashes, Medicinal plants, Diversity and production, Millet gaps, Seed ageing, Flax core
- First off — a pretty big deal. Taylor & Francis have made a bunch of papers related to sustainable agriculture freely available, but only until the end of December. Happy whatever holiday won’t offend you.
- Twentieth-century changes in the genetic composition of Swedish field pea metapopulations. Metapopulations have become isolated populations. In genebanks.
- Effects of different irrigation systems on the biodiversity of species-rich hay meadows. Change from the traditional irrigation system has affected biodiversity levels, but not a huge amount.
- Research regarding the use of wheat biodiversity for obtaining some cereal-based fermented mashes. Let’s go straight to what we need to know here: the best mash come from spelt wheat. Oh, to be the one doing the organoleptic characterization.
- Cultivation and high capitalization of medicinal and aromatic plants in the Romanian-Bulgarian cross-border region. If you’re really interested, there’s a database that brings it all together.
- Crop biodiversity, productivity and production risk: Panel data micro-evidence from Ethiopia. More crops = more production. But the devil is in the details, I suspect.
- Identification of gaps in pearl millet germplasm from East and Southern Africa conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. We used to do this sort of thing by hand in my day.
- At3g08030 transcript: a molecular marker of seed ageing. This mRNA could predict germination performance of a dry seed lot across species. Good for genebanks?
- Assembling a core collection from the flax world collection maintained by Plant Gene Resources of Canada. You don’t hear much about core collections these days, why is that?