- Genetic and root phenotype diversity in Sri Lankan rice landraces may be related to drought resistance. Fancy genotyping and phenotyping picks out landrace whose name in Sinhalese means “drought rice.”
- The relationship between agricultural biodiversity, dietary diversity, household food security, and stunting of children in rural Kenya. Increasing dietary diversity could increase household food security.
- Biodiversity and origin of the microbial populations isolated from Masske, a traditional Iranian dairy product made from fermented Ewe’s milk. Streptococcus thermophilus doesn’t sound like a safe thing to be drinking, but I still want to try it.
- Well, what can I tell ya, that’s all that caught my eye last week. Send me your favourite paper that I missed, and I’ll summarize it in a sentence by next Monday.
SOTWP Day 2: Useful plants, plant health and invasive plants
Our friend Nora Castañeda summarizes the second and final day of Kew’s State of the World’s Plants Symposium. Here’s the first day if you missed it. Thanks again, Nora, and see you next year.
The second day of the SOTWP Symposium was also organized in three sessions: Useful plants, plant health and invasive plants.
Ann Tutwiler, DG of Bioversity International, started the day with the idea of super-superfoods: crops that can help targeting nutrition, adaptation and resilience at the same time. Tutwiler also accompanied her presentation with a review of the different the projects that Bioversity leads with underutilized crops and crop landraces around the world. After Tutwiler, I presented our work on the global priorities for improving the conservation of crop wild relatives in genebanks. Dr Claude Fauquet from CIAT followed me, and reminded the audience why cassava is an important crop for food security in Africa, and why it is also called the Rambo Root. Finally, Dr Olwen Grace from Kew presented her phylogenetic exploration of medicinal uses, and in particular her research on the chemistry of succulents.
After the (much needed) coffee break, Prof. Adam Kleczowski began the plant health session with a review of the impact of (appropriately) coffee diseases. Prof. Gary Foster followed with perhaps the presentation that caught the audience’s attention most, thanks to his particular style. He talked about how we’ve recorded plant pathogens and their impacts throughout history, including the expensive tulip bulbs infected with viruses during Tulipmania, and the devastating consequences of Phytophtora infestans in Ireland in the 1840’s. According to Foster: these did not only include the infamous famine, but also the movie Titanic). Prof. Sarah Gurr the presented her cutting-edge research on pests and diseases, including newly emerged diseases that may affect biodiversity and the need of having a more biosecure world, the distribution of crop pests and diseases (and its economic and physical drivers), and what’s going to happen with climate change. Closing the session, Tony Kirkham from Kew shared some of the challenges he and his team are facing in keep the trees in the arboretum alive, and their field observations on how climatic events are affecting the arboretum. Longer winters and summers, and shorter autumns and springs, are apparently not at all good for some of the species in the gardens.
The last session of the symposium dealt with invasive plants and some of the existing global policies for combating them. Dr Montserrat Vilà presented on the impacts of invasive species at the ecosystem level: in aquatic habitats, to pollination, and to phylogenetic diversity. Spoiler alert: it’s not good. Prof. Philip Hulme continued with his talk on the environmental costs of weedy-ornamental plant species, illustrated with the beauty of an invasive species in New Zealand: lupins. Hulme described how weed risk assessment in as an effective tool for controlling the spread of invasive species. Prof. Yvonne Buckley, from Trinity College Dublin, then presented her work on the drivers behind the success of exotic species in grasslands, the Nutrient Network (a global collaborative scheme studying grassland ecosystems) and how plant abundance in their native habitat can be used as a predictor of invasiveness. Closing the session (and the symposium), Dr Gerda A. van Uffelen provided some insights from a regional perspective on how to manage (and avoid) invasive species in Europe. The question is: does having a single list for all countries fit the need to prevent invasives, or can a country-tailored approach be more effective? The discussion continues…
Some final observations. On the organization, it would be great if future SOTWP symposia (the next is planned for 25-26 May 2017) could involve participants from outside the boundaries of the room, perhaps by video-conferencing to a wide audience. And with regards to the SOTWP report, it will be interesting to see to what extent it is actually used to identify gaps in botanical research, and therefore priority setting. And not just for crop wild relatives :)
Brainfood: Banana GWAS, Yeast genebanks, Hybrid sorghum, How to intensify ecologically, Med pastures, Food services, Neolithic transition, Ploughing the savanna
- A Genome-Wide Association Study on the Seedless Phenotype in Banana (Musa spp.) Reveals the Potential of a Selected Panel to Detect Candidate Genes in a Vegetatively Propagated Crop. One strong candidate gene, from 6 possible regions. And here’s the light version.
- Yeast culture collections in the twenty-first century: New opportunities and challenges. Pretty much the same as plant genebanks.
- Genetic variation in sorghum as revealed by phenotypic and SSR markers: implications for combining ability and heterosis for grain yield. Possible parents for hybrids identified.
- Actionable knowledge for ecological intensification of agriculture. Look at the landscape, articulate trade-offs and don’t forget the social dynamics.
- Taxonomic and functional diversity in Mediterranean pastures: Insights on the biodiversity–productivity trade-off. Somebody mention trade-offs?
- Are the major imperatives of food security missing in ecosystem services research? Pretty much.
- Reproductive trade-offs in extant hunter-gatherers suggest adaptive mechanism for the Neolithic expansion. Agriculture got you laid, but then killed you.
- High carbon and biodiversity costs from converting Africa’s wet savannahs to cropland. Bad idea all round.
Nibbles: Fixing food, Diane Medal, Iraq Edens, Camel genetics, Disappearing horses
- UNEP video on why we have to change the food system.
- Garden Club of America honors breadfruit guru Diane Ragone.
- Paradise spared. In Iraq.
- No such thing as an isolated dromedary, DNA says.
- Horses in Kazakhstan, on the other hand…
Request for pulse nutritional data
As part of the International Year of Pulses, we are working on a global database on the composition of pulses, starting with the collection of analytical data. We have found many scientific articles on pulses, which we are compiling. As usual, most data are on proximates, minerals and amino acids. If you have any unpublished data on the composition of pulses or their products, we would be extremely happy to include them into our database, especially if they contain vitamins, but we would be interested in any compositional data, or if they are on processing influence, fermentation, soaking etc.
If you have any analytical compositional data to share please send the sources or the compiled data to Fernanda Grande, (Fernanda[dot]Grande[at]fao[dot]org) who is coordinating this project.
That’s from Ruth Charrondiere, INFOODS coordinator at FAO. There’s more information on the IYP website. Seems like a worthwhile endeavour, please give (data) generously. Oh, and if you want to meet Ruth and her colleagues, and learn more about food composition tables in general, check this out.
LATER: Wondering what to do with all that data? Here’s a thought…