- Biodiversity is insurance, says insurance company.
- Especially biodiversity of fruits and vegetables.
- Research by CGIAR into how best to use that insurance generates a 10:1 return on investment. Kind of. Covers breeding et al., but not genebanks. Sigh.
- Professor Claire Kremen is awarded the Volvo Environment Prize 2020 for research on how to protect that insurance while feeding the world.
- People have been fiddling with that insurance for longer than we thought, archeologists say.
Brainfood: Sorghum lodging, GR wheat, Wild potato core, Wild tomato structure, Protected areas, Biodiversity agreements, Malt archaeology, Hittite archeology, Seed traders, Peasant networks, Seed storage, Mesoamerican crop origins, Intensification, Cattle breeds, Pig domestication, Rice barcodes, Potato history, Rice spread
- Large-scale genome-wide association study reveals that drought-induced lodging in grain sorghum is associated with plant height and traits linked to carbon remobilisation. To reduce lodging, better to select for stay-green (delayed leaf senescence) than for short stature and lodging resistance per se. Here’s a Twitter thread by one of the authors summarizing the findings.
- Green revolution ‘stumbles’ in a dry environment: Dwarf wheat with Rht genes fails to produce higher grain yield than taller plants under drought. At least it doesn’t lodge, though, right?
- A Core Subset of the ex situ Collection of S. demissum at the US Potato Genebank. From 149 to 38, keeping 96% of all marker diversity.
- Migration through a major Andean ecogeographic disruption as a driver of genotypic and phenotypic diversity in a wild tomato species. I guess if you were going to make a core collection for this you could do worse than sample ecogeographically diverse and isolated spots. Tricky to conserve in situ though.
- DNA barcoding of Oryza: conventional, specific, and super barcodes. 6 hypervariable regions in the chloroplast genome can serve as rice-specific DNA barcodes. Assuming you agree on species concepts in the first place.
- A “Global Safety Net” to reverse biodiversity loss and stabilize Earth’s climate. The 50% of the Earth to save to save the Earth.
- Three Key considerations for biodiversity conservation in multilateral agreements. Plan, model, assign responsibility.
- Mashes to Mashes, Crust to Crust. Presenting a novel microstructural marker for malting in the archaeological record. Aleurone cell breakdown in archaeobotanical remains is a robust indicator of beer-making. I bet they find it everywhere now.
- The agroecology of an early state: new results from Hattusha. Huge underground grain silos, with each container holding grain from multiple sites, which could be evidence of tax-paying. But no word on beer.
- Informal Seed Traders: The Backbone of Seed Business and African Smallholder Seed Supply. Lots of room for engagement, and considerable upside. If I were to pick out just one high-potential intervention, it would be providing training in seed testing.
- Restoring cultivated agrobiodiversity: The political ecology of knowledge networks between local peasant seed groups in France. I’m sure they’re testing their seeds.
- A Protective Role for Accumulated Dry Matter Reserves in Seeds During Desiccation: Implications for Conservation. Cells must have >35% dry matter to be able to withstand desiccation.
- Multiple lines of evidence for the origin of domesticated chili pepper, Capsicum annuum, in Mexico. It looks like we — inexplicably — missed this the first time around. Chilli, maize and beans originated in different parts of Mexico.
- Ecological intensification and diversification approaches to maintain biodiversity, ecosystem services and food production in a changing world. Though you can change one thing at a time, it’s better to redesign the whole system. But is the better the enemy of the good?
- Refining the genetic structure and relationships of European cattle breeds through meta-analysis of worldwide genomic SNP data, focusing on Italian cattle. 2 groups among Italian breeds: North-Central breeds linked to Alpine and Iberian breeds, and Podolian-Sicilian breeds with links to the Balkans.
- The Archaeology of Pig Domestication in Eurasia. Independent domestication in northern Mesopotamia by 7500 BC (extensive management) and China by 6000 BC (maybe intensive); failed to take off in Japan, for interesting reasons.
- Vegetative States: Potatoes, Affordances, and Survival Ecologies. The potato has both helped to underpin and resist state coercion. The Hittites would have worked something out, though, I feel.
- Holocene coastal evolution preceded the expansion of paddy field rice farming. Rice only moved south from the lower Yangtze 2-3000 years ago, once costal land opened up. No word on affordances.
Brainfood: Cali ag, Wild potato double, Enset diversity double, Banana collecting, Disease models, Wild resistance, SP drought, Wheat blast, MAGIC wheat, Biological control, Teosinte, Artemisia, Multiple cropping, Mungbean value, Traditional crops, Singing dogs, Biodiversity metric, Hotspots
- Projected temperature increases may require shifts in the growing season of cool-season crops and the growing locations of warm-season crops. In California’s Mediterranean climate, cool season crops will have to shift in time, and warm-season crops in place.
- A “Mega Population” of the Wild Potato Species Solanum fendleri. Large population, safe, accessible and very diverse. Who needs genebanks, right?
- Survival of Solanum jamesii Tubers at Freezing Temperatures. Very unusual trait in both the crop and the wild relatives, apparently.
- Diversity and uses of enset [Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman] varieties in Angacha district, Southern Ethiopia: call for taxonomic identifications and conservation. 55 varieties in 75 homegardens, 88 in the field genebank, many in only one or the other.
- Impact of Climate Change on the Diversity and Distribution of Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw) Cheesman) in Ethiopia: A Review. Some are moving, some are dying. I guess we really need in vitro and cryo after all.
- Filling the gaps in gene banks: Collecting, characterizing and phenotyping wild banana relatives of Papua New Guinea. Much diversity of banana ancestor still not in genebanks, but people are on the job.
- Modeling the Impact of Crop Diseases on Global Food Security. Genetic diversity is not enough.
- What natural variation can teach us about resistance durability. That genetic diversity is not enough, apparently.
- Wheat blast: a new threat to food security. We have the genes to fight it, but they won’t be enough.
- Limited haplotype diversity underlies polygenic trait architecture across 70 years of wheat breeding. I hope at least those genes can be found in this MAGIC population based on European bread wheat varieties from the past few decades.
- Potential Short-Term Memory Induction as a Promising Method for Increasing Drought Tolerance in Sweetpotato Crop Wild Relatives [Ipomoea series Batatas (Choisy) D. F. Austin]. Wild sweet potatoes have the genes to remember drought stress, and hence cope with it better. Will they be enough though?
- Ecological pest control fortifies agricultural growth in Asia–Pacific economies. Biological control has been worth USD 15-20 billion a year for non-rice crops over the past 100 years across 23 countries. But how much is the interaction with genetic diversity worth?
- Evaluation of the contribution of teosinte to the improvement of agronomic, grain quality and yield traits in maize (Zea mays). Wild relative not just a source of stress resistance, could be useful for yield potential too.
- “It may also have prevented churchgoers from falling asleep”: southernwood, Artemisia abrotanum L. (fam. Asteraceae), in the church bouquet, and its contemporary presence as a heritage plant in Sweden. The fragrance lingers.
- Multiple cropping systems of the world and the potential for increasing cropping intensity. Multiple cropping on 12% of total agricultural area, which could increase, but probably not as much as was thought.
- Impact and returns on investment of mungbean research and development in Myanmar. Four varieties coming out of international research created economic gains of USD 1.4 billion from 1980-2016. That’s a ROI of about 90, but it took 20 years to kick in.
- Are Traditional Food Crops Really ‘Future Smart Foods?’ A Sustainability Perspective. Well, they could be, but maybe we don’t have 20 years.
- New Guinea highland wild dogs are the original New Guinea singing dogs. …which are therefore not extinct in the wild as used to be thought. Or so the DNA says.
- WEGE: A new metric for ranking locations for biodiversity conservation. That’s “Weighted Endemism including Global Endangerment,” and it hasn’t been tried on plants. Yet.
- Toward Unifying Global Hotspots of Wild and Domesticated Biodiversity. They overlap a lot but not completely. Expect WEGE to be applied at some stage.
Nibbles: Lost apple, Ducks, Chilli breeding, Heritage breeds, Population and Quantitative Genetics, Madeira
- Finding the Colorado Orange apple.
- British duck breed goes wild in Thailand.
- Might consumers care about genetics?
- Well they do, right? At least if they’re into heirloom varieties and heritage breeds.
- If they do care, they should read this book.
- Is madeira your desert island wine?
Brainfood: Special citizen science edition
Something for the weekend. I hope you enjoy this special edition of Brainfood focusing on citizen science, Indigenous knowledge and participatory research. Do you like themed Brainfood editions like this? There will be another one on Monday, as it happens. They’re more tricky to produce, but if there’s significant interest I may make the extra effort. Let me know, and suggest topics.
- The value of climate-resilient seeds for smallholder adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa. Up to USD 2 billion in Malawi and Tanzania over the next 30 years.
- Agricultural productivity and deforestation: Evidence from input subsidies and ethnic favoritism in Malawi. Cheaper fertilizers increased yields and decreased deforestation. Better seeds would help too, no doubt (see above).
- Channels used to deliver agricultural information and knowledge to smallholder farmers. Farmer groups and demonstration plots work well to spread the news about fertilizers and seeds.
- Integrating Conventional and Participatory Crop Improvement for Smallholder Agriculture Using the Seeds for Needs Approach: A Review. Combine high-tech centralized and participatory decentralized germplasm evaluation and breeding approaches to get those better seeds to farmer groups and their demonstration plots.
- Citizen science breathes new life into participatory agricultural research. A review. Why do the participatory, decentralized bit? Here’s why. Fortunately, there’s an app for it…
- A global resource for exploring and exploiting genetic variation in sorghum crop wild relatives. If those seeds include sorghum, you could start with this lot.
- Gendered differences in crop diversity choices: A case study from Papua New Guinea. And don’t forget gender as you do all this participatory, decentralized stuff. For example, in PNG, the women are into marketing, the men into tradition.
- Crowd breeding of Danish apple cultivars. No word on gender differences, alas.
- Modelling illustrates that genomic selection provides new opportunities for intercrop breeding. Here’s the high-tech, centralized bit, or at least a model of it, ripe for mashing up with citizen science.
- Dissection of the domestication‐shaped genetic architecture of lettuce primary metabolism. More high-tech, centralized stuff, the real thing this time. Which can now be used to breed a better lettuce, hopefully by lots of citizens growing the stuff in their gardens and providing salad tasting results through a nifty app.
- Indigenous and Local Knowledge Practices and Innovations for Enhancing Food Security Under Climate Change: Examples from Mijikenda Communities in Coastal Kenya. Maybe farmers should run participatory programmes, with scientists as the citizens.
- Micronutrient composition and microbial community analysis across diverse landraces of the Ethiopian orphan crop enset. Don’t know how you’d do citizen science on this, but I bet somebody does.
- Discovering the indigenous microbial communities associated with the natural fermentation of sap from the cider gum Eucalyptus gunnii. Someone mention traditional fermentation practices?
- The Milpa Game: a Field Experiment Investigating the Social and Ecological Dynamics of Q’eqchi’ Maya Swidden Agriculture. Citizen science is not a game. No, wait…
- The Ancient Tree Inventory: a summary of the results of a 15 year citizen science project recording ancient, veteran and notable trees across the UK. Not a game indeed: very serious, but fun, definitely fun.