Microbes

May 5, 2009

Diversity on air

I’ve been listening to a radio programme about diversity in action. Called The Evolution Boomerang, from Soundprint, it examines three cases where diversity is important to agriculture and the environment. There’s a segment on GMO cotton and insect resistance, a segment on the need for genetic diversity at salmon hatcheries, and a segment on selecting bacteria to degrade a chemical that had never existed on Earth before humans manufactured it.

All good stuff, if you have half an hour to spare. You will need Real Player to listen.

April 21, 2009April 21, 2009

Nibbles: Assisted migration, Livestock and ecosystems, Agrobiodiversity tourism, Earthworms, Fish, Cucurbits

Assisted location is now managed relocation. So that’s alright then.
Transhumance is good for ecosystem. Oh, and bison too.
Geotourism in Yellowstone has a website. Can agroecotourism be far behind? I’m afraid so.
No relationship between parasite load and genetic diversity in earthworms. Alas.
“The naming of fish is a nightmare. They have more aliases than Maltese pimps.” Which is why Latin binomials were invented, duh.
Pix of Colombian cucurbit (and other) diversity.

April 19, 2009June 28, 2009

The connection between wine and beer is agrobiodiversity

Sandor Katz has even had a poem written about his singular obsession:

Come on friends and lend me an ear,
I’ll explain the connection between wine and beer,
And sourdough and yogurt and miso and kraut,
What they have in common is what it’s all about.
Oh the microorganisms, Oh the microorganisms. . .

But don’t let that put you off. Katz is the author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. You can read the introduction, and various other excerpts online, as well as order the book, of course. Microbes are agricultural biodiversity too!

March 25, 2009March 25, 2009

Nibbles: Adaptation, Vegetables, Wood, Allotment, Earthworms, Salmon, Bees, Malaria, Potatoes, Apples

ICRISAT: “The impact of climate change on the yields under low input agriculture is likely to be minimal as other factors will continue to provide the overriding constraints to crop growth and yield.” So that’s all right then.
Book and CD-ROM on African indigenous veggies.
CD-ROM of wood characteristics.
The agrobiodiversity of “…the oldest and largest area of detached town gardens in Britain” being surveyed. Cultivated since 1605. Wow.
Earthworm Week! Yay!
“This is an exciting time for salmon conservation in the Pahsimeroi.”
Hawaiian native bees in trouble. Get in line.
The world has a malaria map. Very cool.
The Canary Islands tries to save its potatoes, sweet and otherwise.
The Forgotten Fruits Summit. You heard me.

February 12, 2009February 12, 2009

Nibbles: Hell, Honours, Pollution, Darwin, Genomes, Small companies, Tigernuts, Urine soft drink, Medicinal plants

A way out of hell: workshop on Database Challenges in Biodiversity Informatics
Potato man honoured.
Farm diversity reduces nitrogen runoff.
Darwin on the Farm, from our friends at the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
Yeast and wheat genome sequencing going gangbusters.
Coffee!
Fermented tigernuts more nutritious? No, they’re not from an endangered species. Via.
Cow water!
Lots of medicinal plants conservation projects going on in India.