Category: Threats

• Remote sensing of cytotype and its consequences for canopy damage in quaking aspen. You can tell diploid from triploid trees from space.
• Future global conflict risk hotspots between biodiversity conservation and food security: 10 countries and 7 Biodiversity Hotspots. Fancy maths tells us biodiversity and agriculture are most in conflict in DRC, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Togo, Zambia, Angola, Guinea, Nigeria, Laos, and Cambodia.
• Allele mining in diverse accessions of tropical grasses to improve forage quality and reduce environmental impact. A draft reference genome from a single species tells us about 7 potentially useful alleles among 104 clearly very well chosen accessions of Urochloa spp and Megathyrsus maximus.
• Research Status of Forage Seed Industry in China. I wonder how many of the above alleles can be found in the Chinese forage collection. Might be easier to eventually find out if the website supposedly serving up the national forage germplasm resource management system actually worked.
• Safe conservation and utilization of peanut germplasm resources in the Oil Crops Middle-term Genebank of China. We are even told about some individual interesting accessions, though not how to get hold of them.
• The impact of crop diversification, tillage and fertilization type on soil total microbial, fungal and bacterial abundance: A worldwide meta-analysis of agricultural sites. Meta-analysis tells us that use of organic fertilisers and reduced tillage are associated with more microbes, fungi and bacteria in the soil.
• Detecting the linkage between arable land use and poverty using machine learning methods at global perspective. Machines tells us that higher crop yields and more fertilisers are associated with lower poverty levels. Non-machines are shocked. No word on soil microbial abundance.
• The 10 Elements of Agroecology: enabling transitions towards sustainable agriculture and food systems through visual narratives. Well, these 10 are not only the elements of agroecology, so they could tell us about other messaging too.
• Regional Patterns of Late Medieval and Early Modern European Building Activity Revealed by Felling Dates. Tree rings in old buildings tells us more felling where and when grain prices were low and mining activity high. No machines involed.
• Genetic diversity analysis and characterization of Ugandan sorghum. A tropical genebank collection can tell us about temperate-adapted germplasm, if we know how to ask.
• Discovery and characterization of sweetpotato’s closest tetraploid relative. Meet Ipomoea aequatoriensis T. Wells & P. Muñoz sp. nov. from, well, Ecuador.
• Metabolomic selection for enhanced fruit flavor. Another machine tells us how to pick tasty tomatoes and blueberries from chemical profiles. No word on when it will be able to describe new species.