- Archive and refugia of soil organisms: applying a pedodiversity framework for the conservation of biological and non-biological heritages. They want to set up a network of soil reserves. To conserve the likes of dung beetles, among other things (see last week’s Brainfood). Someone will no doubt mash this up with nature reserves and other protected areas in due course.
- Climate warming over the past three decades has shortened rice growth duration in China and cultivar shifts have further accelerated the process for late rice. One degree increase in temperature translates to about a 4 day shortening of growth period. But the problem would not be so bad if short-duration cultivars were not being increasingly used. No, I don’t fully get it either, but it seems interesting.
- Multiple origins of the determinate growth habit in domesticated common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). The gene in question, part of the domestication syndrome, has been messed about in a variety of distinct and independent ways.
- The Cassava Mealybug (Phenacoccus manihoti) in Asia: First Records, Potential Distribution, and an Identification Key. Bad news for “the southern end of Karnataka in India, the eastern end of the Ninh Thuan province in Vietnam, and in most of West Timor in Indonesia.” No resistance. Yet.
- Genetic relationship between Chinese wild Vitis species and American and European Cultivars based on ISSR markers. It is limited. That goes for the wilds too.
- Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem service supply, biodiversity, and habitat conservation status in Europe. What’s good for the environment is good for the environment. Or if you prefer the non-smartass version, get it from the horse’s mouth…
- Development of best practices for ex situ conservation of radish germplasm in the context of the crop genebank knowledge base. See the results for yourself.
- How does climate change cause extinction? Not so much because of intolerance to high temperatures as due to disruption of relationships with other species, as it turns out. But it’s a small sample.
- Testing the “Local Provenance” Paradigm: A Common Garden Experiment in Cumberland Plain Woodland, Sydney, Australia. No difference between locally sourced and more “exotic” provenances. Bang goes that paradigm.
- Mapping the genomic architecture of ecological speciation in the wild: does linkage disequilibrium hold the key? Clever shortcut allows identification of key genes separating phenotypically distinct but admixing species. I think. It’s complicated.
- Breeding Strategies for Adaptation of Pearl Millet and Sorghum to Climate Variability and Change in West Africa. Anything that keeps diversity in the system, basically.
- Estimation of phenotypic divergence in a collection of Cucumis melo, including shelf-life of fruit. Old-fashioned morphological characterization of small Indian collection confirms distinction between botanical varieties. Not many people hurt.
- Pollen diversity matters: revealing the neglected effect of pollen diversity on fitness in fragmented landscapes. Fragmentation means lower pollen diversity in Eucalyptus sp., means lower progeny fitness, and not just because of inbreeding.
- Increasing Cropping System Diversity Balances Productivity, Profitability and Environmental Health. So let me get this straight. You mean to tell me that a little bit of industrial agriculture (synthetic inputs) can combine with a little bit of ecoagriculture (cropping diversity) to give you something that’s kinda better than both?
Brainfood: Host-pathogen genomics, Maize-teosinte system, Organic Europe meta-analysis, Food perceptions, Guanaco, Earthworms, Pea & powdery mildew, Pea drought tolerance, Butternut regeneration, Wild tomato salt tolerance, Germination & climate change, Medieval melons, Barley domestication, Rice origin, Livestock & wildlife, Niche modelling, Insects
- A Population Genomics Perspective on the Emergence and Adaptation of New Plant Pathogens in Agro-Ecosystems. Crop diversity affects fungal diversity as much as the other way around. Actually more so, as fungal genomes are incredibly plastic.
- Teosinte as a model system for population and ecological genomics. Genetics of speciation, hybridization, various evolutionary questions: all can usefully be looked at in the maize-teosinte system with cheap next-generation sequencing. Oh, and that can help us with crop improvement.
- Does organic farming reduce environmental impacts? –- A meta-analysis of European research. Per unit area, yes. Per unit product, not always. Need to mix and match. Good luck with that.
- “Healthy,” “diet,” or “hedonic”. How nutrition claims affect food-related perceptions and intake? If you tell people something is healthier, they believe it is, in fact, well, healthier.
- Guanaco management by pastoralists in the Southern Andes. They can coexist with cattle.
- Earthworms promote the reduction of Fusarium biomass and deoxynivalenol content in wheat straw under field conditions. Earthworms protect crops from pathogens.
- Screening of pea germplasm for resistance to powdery mildew. 14 accessions from 10 countries are promising. That’s out of 700. Hard row to hoe.
- Sources of high tolerance to salinity in pea (Pisum sativum L.). Out of some 780 accessions, China seems to be a hotspot, but the most tolerant accession was from Greece. Any overlap with the previous results?
- A rare case of natural regeneration in butternut, a threatened forest tree, is parent and space limited. In situ is not enough. Not if you don’t help it along, anyway.
- Relationship between survival and yield related traits in Solanum pimpinellifolium under salt stress. 2 accessions among a subset of over 90 from over 300 in the AVRDC collection show high survival and yield under stress. Would be interesting to know if the 90 were indeed well-chosen in the first place.
- Climate warming could shift the timing of seed germination in alpine plants. Spring emergence will shift to autumn, but the bad effect will be on the seedlings.
- Medieval emergence of sweet melons, Cucumis melo (Cucurbitaceae). Lexicography suggests that there were sweet melons in Central Asia early on, but they didn’t get to Iberia until the late 11th Century, and to the rest of Europe until the 15th. Climate and the clash of civilizations to blame, as ever.
- Tibet is one of the centers of domestication of cultivated barley. The other being the Fertile Crescent. Some Chinese hulless and six-rowed barleys in particular are similar to Tibetan wild material. But are the authors stretching the data?
- A map of rice genome variation reveals the origin of cultivated rice. Or origins. Japonica first domesticated from O. rufipogon in the middle Pearl River in Southern China, and indica is a hybrid of the first cultivars with local wild rice in South East and South Asia. But have we not heard this before? Ah, but this paper has more, better markers, no doubt. Anyway, compare and contrast with maize and barley above.
- Lessons on the relationship between livestock husbandry and biodiversity from the Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment (KLEE). Livestock and wildlife can coexist, but you have to work at it. Bit like the guanaco thing, then?
- Modeling plant species distributions under future climates: how fine-scale do climate projections need to be? Doesn’t matter for total extent, but actual locations of stable climates vary with scale. On average, “270 m is fine enough,” but it really depends on the species. Probably safest answer is “as fine as possible.”
- Fertilisers and insect herbivores: a meta-analysis. Fertilizers good for insect numbers. Which means bad for plants? But insect diversity? Wonder what they do to those earthworms and fungi above…
Nibbles: GBIF, Maize Day, European biodiversity indicators, Fishy podcast, CABI website, Seed chipper, Indian biodiversity
- GBIF Science Symposium presentations online.
- Yes, I missed Mexico’s National Day of Maize too.
- Europe has some biodiversity indicators. And wants them streamlined. Some agriculture in there, if you look hard enough.
- WorldFish DG reflects.
- CABI wants help with its new website.
- Every breeder should have a seed chipper.
- India pushes seaweeds and spices. How about evergreen agriculture, though? I feel a COP coming on…
Brainfood: Organic ag, Garlic conservation costs, Spelt malting, Wild rice genetics, Diversity and ecosystem function, Old late blight, Urbanization and biodiversity, Seed laws, DNA from herbaria, Fruit & veg & school, Quinoa bars, Maize introgression
- Organic vegetable farms are not nutritionally disadvantaged compared with adjacent conventional or integrated vegetable farms in Eastern Australia. Something for the next meta-analysis.
- Comparing costs for different conservation strategies of garlic (Allium sativum L.) germplasm in genebanks. It depends.
- Malting process optimization of spelt (Triticum spelta L.) for the brewing process. You can make a decent beer from spelt. Can I do the evaluation?
- Genetic differentiation of Oryza ruffipogon [sic] Griff. from Hainan Island and Guangdong, China Based on Hd1 and Ehd1 genes. It’s different, because of different ecology.
- Plant species diversity and genetic diversity within a dominant species interactively affect plant community biomass. In other words, the higher the genetic diversity within the dominant species, the further the effect of species diversity on biomass goes from negative to positive. Bottom line is that you have to consider multiple diversity levels in relating biodiversity to ecosystem functioning. At least in this ecosystem.
- Evidence for presence of the founder Ia mtDNA haplotype of Phytophthora infestans in 19th century potato tubers from the Rothamsted archives. “…the founder Ia mtDNA haplotype survived in potato tubers after 1846 and was present over 30 years later in the UK.”
- Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Urban area to triple, affecting important biodiversity hotspots. Biggest surprise to me was Turkey. Gotta be a lot of CWRs there that are going to be threatened by urbanization. But I guess this is good news for urban agriculture?
- Seed Governance at the Intersection of Multiple Global and Nation-State Priorities: Modernizing Seeds in Turkey. Developing countries are opting for laws that favor commercialization and privatization because they’re buying into the currently dominant paradigm of what agricultural development means. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t. And if my aunt had wheels she’d be a bus.
- DNA Damage in Plant Herbarium Tissue. There isn’t enough of it to matter.
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of school-based interventions to improve daily fruit and vegetable intake in children aged 5 to 12 y. Fruit yes, veggies no.
- Use of cereal bars with quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa W.) to reduce risk factors related to cardiovascular diseases. Only 22 young(ish) subjects, but promising.
- The Genomic Signature of Crop-Wild Introgression in Maize. The wild relative has helped the cultigen to adapt to highland Mexico.
Nibbles: Polyploidy study, Agrobiodiversity policy, Organic livestock, Innovation, Buffett on small farms
- $2 million to study strawberries sounds like quite a lot, but then it is to investigate polyploidy in general.
- Agroforesters hear about IPR and agrobiodiversity. Probably not for the first, or last, time.
- Let’s not forget that even animal husbandry can be organic.
- “A lack of evidence to convince policymakers holds back progress on grassroots innovation in agriculture.” Weird; doesn’t seem to hold them back on anything else.
- What Howard G. Buffett knows about small farms. Campaign for Real Farming has made his words available.