Nutrition – Page 59 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019

Stunting as a smoke alarm

Remember that paper on stunting that we included in Brainfood a couple of weeks ago? It was called What Does Stunting Really Mean? A Critical Review of the Evidence, and the answer to the question in the title was, to put it bluntly: not as much as many think.

Why is that important? Well, because “[s]tunting is commonly believed to cause serious problems, including delayed child development, reduced productivity and earnings in adulthood, higher incidence of chronic diseases including obesity or cardiovascular problems, difficult childbirth, and poor birth outcomes such as low birthweight.” But it turns out that this is not entirely true, and “this subtle misinterpretation could harm the global nutrition agenda.”

That’s from a blog post by one of the authors on the IFPRI website, which also includes a handy video explanation of the subtleties involved. Here’s the bottom line: stunting is not so much the fire as the smoke alarm.

May 6, 2019May 7, 2019

Brainfood: Thlaspi domestication, WDPA, PA benefits, Oil palm benefits, Stunting, Production synchronicity, Bean nutrients, Caprine domestication, Roots of tuber eating, Cassava shovelomics, Intensification, Extinction prediction, Pistachio genome

Progress toward the identification and stacking of crucial domestication traits in pennycress. Thank goodness it’s closely related to Arabidopsis.
Sixty years of tracking conservation progress using the World Database on Protected Areas. Will increasingly expand to informally protected ares and link to other databases.
Evaluating the impacts of protected areas on human well-being across the developing world. Pretty positive impacts for communities living near protected areas, with some tourism.
Does oil palm agriculture help alleviate poverty? A multidimensional counterfactual assessment of oil palm development in Indonesia. Not in remote, mainly subsistence villages. So I guess that means the best outcomes come from oil palm plantations near protected areas?
Perspective: What Does Stunting Really Mean? A Critical Review of the Evidence. Not as much as some think, but not nothing.
Synchronized failure of global crop production. Lower production synchrony within crops, but higher among crops, meaning calorie production very vulnerable to climate change.
Comparative analysis of perennial and annual Phaseolus seed nutrient concentrations. Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, and P higher in wild annuals.
Urine salts elucidate Early Neolithic animal management at Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey. May show the transition from hunting caprines to keeping them penned up about 10,000 years ago outside the Fertile Crescent.
Cooked starchy food in hearths ca. 120 kya and 65 kya (MIS 5e and MIS 4) from Klasies River Cave, South Africa. Earliest evidence of parenchyma as food, apparently.
Phenotypic variation of cassava root traits and their responses to drought. Phancy phenotyping.
Conventional land‐use intensification reduces species richness and increases production: A global meta‐analysis. Especially in mid-intensity systems, but in low- and high-intensity systems you can get closer to win-wins.
Projecting impacts of global climate and land‐use scenarios on plant biodiversity using compositional‐turnover modelling. All the intensification in the world is not going to help if climate change isn’t curbed.
Whole genomes and transcriptomes reveal adaptation and domestication of pistachio. Salinity tolerance related to jasmonic acid synthesis pathway.

April 29, 2019April 11, 2019

Brainfood: Grazing behaviour, XW, Swedish Neolithic, Apple genome impact, Mango diversity, Blueberry quality, Durum genome, Ancient sorghum, Nordic rye, Tomato flavour, Diets & health, CGIAR & ITPGRFA

An inexpensive and open‐source method to study large terrestrial animal diet and behaviour using time‐lapse video and GPS. GoPro used to figure out what species grazing cows eat throughout the year. Could be useful to gauge forage value of different plants.
The risk posed by Xanthomonas wilt disease of banana: Mapping of disease hotspots, fronts and vulnerable landscapes. Northern Mozambique and central lowland DR Congo are the gateways. Extension is the key.
Maritime Hunter-Gatherers Adopt Cultivation at the Farming Extreme of Northern Europe 5000 Years Ago. Migrating farmers drew the line at Sweden.
Apple whole genome sequences: recent advances and new prospects. Great insights into domestication and diversity of collections. Next step: genomic prediction.
Estimation of genetic diversity and relatedness in a mango germplasm collection using SNP markers and a simplified visual analysis method. The collection at the USDA Subtropical Horticulture Research Station could be half the size.
Haplotype-phased genome and evolution of phytonutrient pathways of tetraploid blueberry. Including candidate genes for fruit quality.
Durum wheat genome highlights past domestication signatures and future improvement targets. Mutation for high cadmium accumulation common in domesticated material, but a variant allowing better growth in zinc-deficient soils and less accumulation available in wild populations.
A domestication history of dynamic adaptation and genomic deterioration in Sorghum. Genomes from archaeological specimens suggest that decrease in diversity over time in sorghum was not due to an initial one-off domestication bottleneck, but rather to repeated sequential founding episodes. Doesn’t seem like much of a difference to me.
Population genetic structure in Fennoscandian landrace rye (Secale cereale L.) spanning 350 years. Just one big happy, old family.
Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies provides insights into genetic control of tomato flavor. Breeders could breed for flavour. But will they?
Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. People should eat more of the above grains and fruits.
CGIAR Operations under the Plant Treaty Framework. Non-monetary benefits are not to be sneezed at, but all too often are.

April 15, 2019March 29, 2019

Brainfood: Green Revolution, Pear diversity, Spider plant, Mexican maize erosion, Wheat yield, Salty carrots, Salinity tolerance, Diversification, Ancient farmers, Genebank training, Grapevine diversity, Dietary diversity, Wild chickpeas, Hulless barley

From Green Revolution to Green Evolution: A Critique of the Political Myth of Averted Famine. Did not avert famine, but it was still important.
Comparative transcriptomic analysis provides insight into the domestication and improvement of pear (P. pyrifolia) fruit. Much diversity was lost during domestication, but some was gained during improvement, though in different parts of the genome.
Association between vitamin content, plant morphology and geographical origin in a worldwide collection of the orphan crop Gynandropsis gynandra (Cleomaceae). It’s the E and S African stuff you want.
The abandonment of maize landraces over the last 50 years in Morelos, Mexico: a tracing study using a multi-level perspective. Don’t blame the youth.
Elucidating the genetic basis of biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency in spring wheat and its role in yield potential. Landraces and synthetics can be used to increase yield potential.
Variation for Salinity Tolerance During Seed Germination in Diverse Carrot [Daucus carota (L.)] Germplasm. 4 cultivated accessions from Turkey out of 273 were best, and the wilds were no good, for a change.
Salt stress under the scalpel – dissecting the genetics of salt tolerance. Need to break it down into its component parts. See above for an example, I guess.
Ecological-economic trade-offs of Diversified Farming Systems – A review. Need to take the long view.
Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia. Until the next one comes along.
Training in Plant Genetic Resources Management: A Way Forward. I hope so.
Whole-genome resequencing of 472 Vitis accessions for grapevine diversity and demographic history analyses. “The network of the domesticated grapevine cultivars is an indication of a highly complicated breeding history of European domesticated grapevines that started thousands of years ago.”
The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women of Reproductive Age (MDD-W) Indicator Is Related to Household Food Insecurity and Farm Production Diversity: Evidence from Rural Mali. Women from food insecure households less likely to reach MDD-W.
Novel sources of resistance to root-lesion nematode (Pratylenchus thornei) in a new collection of wild Cicer species (C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum) to improve resistance in cultivated chickpea C. arietinum. Goon news for hummus.
Determining factors for the diversity of hulless barley agroecosystem in the Himalaya region — A case study from Northwest Yunnan, China. Religion helps.

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019

Brainfood: Agrobiodiversity drivers, Wild bean adaptation, Berseem breeding, Millet mutants, IK conservation, NUS, Vertebrate threats, Ethiopian nutrition, Maize landraces, Maize phenotyping, Musa chemotypes, Ancient farmers, Vavilov’s steps, Bean diversity, Wild wheat

Agricultural Biodiversity Maintenance in a Coastal Socio-Ecological System: the Pearl Lagoon Basin, Nicaragua. Roads are not always bad for agrobiodiversity.
Signatures of Environmental Adaptation During Range Expansion of Wild Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Candidate genes for increased water use efficiency identified.
Genetic Improvement of Berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) in India: Current Status and Prospects. Including using wild relatives, which was surprising to me.
Generation and characterization of a foxtail millet (Setaria italica) mutant library. Who needs landraces.
Storing and sharing: A review of indigenous and local knowledge conservation initiatives. Ex situ predominates, and local custodians are often excluded. Where have I heard this before?
Prospects of orphan crops in climate change. They’re great. But didn’t we already know this?
Energy and nutrient production in Ethiopia, 2011-2015: Implications to supporting healthy diets and food systems. I guess maybe we didn’t know it. Production has increased, but at the expense of diversity, and nutrient deficits remain.
Hotspots of human impact on threatened terrestrial vertebrates. 1200 species impacted by threats over >90% of their range. I wonder how many livestock wild relatives.
Testcross performance of doubled haploid lines from European flint maize landraces is promising for broadening the genetic base of elite germplasm. “Idle genetic diversity from gene banks” gets busy.
High-throughput method for ear phenotyping and kernel weight estimation in maize using ear digital imaging. Apply to above?
Genetic analysis of Okra Yellow Vein Mosaic Virus disease resistance in wild relative of okra Abelmoschus angulosus Wall. ex Wight & Arn.Smacks of desperation.
Metabolite profiling characterises chemotypes of Musa diploids and triploids at juvenile and pre-flowering growth stages. Unsurprisingly follows the genetics.
Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia. Not much migration after all.
Following Vavilov’s expeditions, Sardinia (Italy). Lots of changes in 90 years. There’s a shocker.
Analyses of African common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) germplasm using a SNP fingerprinting platform: diversity, quality control and molecular breeding. Lots of naming inconsistencies among breeding materials. Another shocker.
Potential of Aegilops sp. for Improvement of Grain Processing and Nutritional Quality in Wheat (Triticum aestivum). Not just Fe and Zn.

1. Modelling adoption of biofortified crops is no substitute for empirical field surveys. Kind of obvious, but I guess needed saying.
2. Kenyans may not need biofortified crops, though. Assuming they are actually eating their traditional vegetables.
3. There’s a whole genebank for Africa’s vegetables.
4. Saba senegalensis is also naturally biofortified.
5. The High Atlas Foundation is also on a fruit tree mission
6. Is the date palm the most important fruit tree in the world, though?
7. I wonder what will happen to USDA’s fruit tree collections.
Published on August 19, 2025