- A toolkit to help indigenous communities do conservation. Should they need one.
- On the other hand… Half of Japan’s endangered species hotspots are found in satoyama, which are under pressure. Compare and contrast with rice farming in Thailand.
- Learn all about some medicinal plants of the Amazon, minus their scientific names. Not including runa tea. Lots of other opportunities out there, though.
- Maybe even including oysters.
- Jeremy no doubt to feast on the mollusc after spilling the beans on the EU seed regulations at the Seed Savers jamboree.
- Wonder what Calestous Juma thinks of those regulations.
- But I bet he (and his father, who introduced the crop to his region of Kenya) would like this cassava website to rule them all.
- The Volcani Institute‘s gifts to the world…
- …probably include new strawberries, but not this one.
- Scientists straining, failing to find plant to meaningfully compare to the giant panda.
- Bioversity does up its iButtons.
- And gets a namecheck in a paean to the FAO Commission on GRFA on its 30th birthday. All this FAO stuff is because its Conference is on this week. I don’t suppose any of it will be more important than Amartya Sen’s speech.
Brainfood: Maize rhizosphere, Climate change vulnerability, Heterosis squared, African forests, Sequencing genebanks
- Diversity and heritability of the maize rhizosphere microbiome under field conditions. There’s a lot of it, but only measured in inbreds so far. One wonders about landraces.
- The Vulnerability of Biodiversity to Rapid Climate Change. We should focus on increasing the adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems, but predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
- The Capsella rubella genome and the genomic consequences of rapid mating system evolution. Sex is better with two.
- Progress Toward Understanding Heterosis in Crop Plants & Genomic and epigenetic insights into the molecular bases of heterosis. It’s the allelic interactions, stupid. Now to make use of this.
- Deforestation in an African biodiversity hotspot: Extent, variation and the effectiveness of protected areas. Protected areas have worked for the evergreen forest, but don’t forget the miombo! Would be intersting to know what this all means for crop wild relatives.
- Comprehensive genotyping of the USA national maize inbred seed bank. Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen the future of genebanks.
Nibbles: Tree domestication, Sacred groves, Solomons aquaculture, Bees and diversity
- Cultivate medicinal trees to save them. Oh, and provide medicines.
- Or you could harvest them sustainably from sacred forests?
- Reef fished out? Aquaculture to the rescue. Sounds a bit like the aquatic equivalent of the above, no? But do they have sea cucumbers and their poop in those inland ponds?
- Growing diverse crops good for bees, good for crops. Buckwheat diverse enough for ya?
Atlas of Living Australia in the spotlight, again
Commenting on a comment on my slightly disappointed take on a couple of new spatial datasets yesterday, our regular reader Glenn Hyman, another CGIAR CGI uber-geek, muses thus:
If I was a young GIS geek, I think I would concentrate on how to create online applications for the non-expert.
Do you mean, Glenn, the kind of “online application for the non-expert” which the Atlas of Living Australia aspires, with considerable success, to be? Which coincidentally is being so actively discussed on Twitter just now. 1 And which I need to road test again very soon, as there have been significant changes since the last time I took it around the block.
@AgroBioDiverse Profile: https://t.co/oCIvoRaEnd The presentations will probably be on line shortly.
— Jim Croft (@jim_croft) June 12, 2013
Eucarpia fishing in Malmo
The meeting of Eucarpia’s Genetic Resources Section is taking place in Malmo, Sweden this week, under the catchy title of “Pre-breeding — fishing in the gene pool.” Lots of old friends there. Maybe someone will tweet: there is a hashtag, but not much action yet.
LATER: No tweets yet, but here’s one presentation at least.