- The Use of Phylogeny to Interpret Cross-Cultural Patterns in Plant Use and Guide Medicinal Plant Discovery: An Example from Pterocarpus (Leguminosae. It’s kinda like parallel evolution.
- Genetic diversity in the Red wild einkorn: T. urartu Gandilyan (Poaceae: Triticeae). Northwest Syria and South Turkey contain the most genetic diversity, and genetic similarity is not a proxy for geographic closeness.
- Castanea spp. biodiversity conservation: collection and characterization of the genetic diversity of an endangered species. Overview of a 7-year project to conserve and study sweet chestnut diversity.
- Diversity in Allium ampeloprasum: from small and wild to large and cultivated. The continuing, complex saga of onion, leek and garlic evolution. It’s about heterozygosity, rathen than ploidy.
- Phylogenetic diversity promotes ecosystem stability. How crazy is that!
Brainfood: Dietary diversity, Diversity and diseases, Soil IK, Insect symbionts, Rhizobia, Wild lettuce, Tree genetic erosion, Pre-domestication barley, Strampelli
- Relating dietary diversity and food variety scores to vegetable production and socio-economic status of women in rural Tanzania. Dietary diversity was all too often alarmingly low, and when it was it was associated with seasonal fluctuations in the production and collecting of vegetables. But a more varied diet need not necessarily be healthier, so more procedural sophistication will be necessary in follow-up studies.
- A risk-minimizing argument for traditional crop varietal diversity use to reduce pest and disease damage in agricultural ecosystems of Uganda. For Musa and beans, more varietal diversity meant less damage and less variation in damage.
- Exploring farmers’ local knowledge and perceptions of soil fertility and management in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Soils which farmers described as being more fertile were, ahem, more fertile.
- Population genetics of beneficial heritable symbionts. Of insects, that is. Important because they can confer protection from natural enemies, among other things. They behave a bit, but not entirely, like beneficial nuclear mutations.
- Widespread fitness alignment in the legume–rhizobium symbiosis. There are no cheaters.
- Genetic polymorphism in Lactuca aculeata populations and occurrence of natural putative hybrids between L. aculeata and L. serriola. Not much diversity in Israel, surprisingly. But isozymes?
- Meta-Analysis of Susceptibility of Woody Plants to Loss of Genetic Diversity through Habitat Fragmentation. The standard story — that trees suffer less genetic erosion because they are long-lived — is apparently wrong, even for wind pollinated trees.
- Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium cal BC in northern Syria. “This was a community dedicated to the systematic production of food from wild cereals.”
- Nazareno Strampelli, the ‘Prophet’ of the green revolution. Before Norman, there was Nazareno.
- The memory remains: application of historical DNA for scaling biodiversity loss. Historical collections of salmon scales reveal many connections between modern evolutionary significant units (ESUs) in the Columbia River and old ones; but also, intriguingly, some differences.
Nibbles: Musa, Millennium Seed Bank, Cassava conference & blog
- The banana in the Pacific. Including those orange ones…
- Swapping seeds at Kew. A genebank reaches out.
- Gosh is that all today? Looks like it. You guys out there have anything?
- No, wait, here’s something else. Huge cassava conference coming up, with its biodiversity on the agenda. These guys will probably be there.
Nibbles: Small farmers, Wild bananas, Titan arum, Fish for diversity, Tenure, Treaty, Australian genebank, Mexican genebank, Mexican drought, Potato record, Khat and fodder in Ethiopia
- On my signal, unleash the potential of small farmers and food producers worldwide. Has a return ring to it.
- More than anyone could reasonably want to know about wild banana relatives in Thailand.
- Big stinky flower with its own webcam. Must be a wild relative of something.
- Better in many ways to catch a diversity of fish species than to focus on one.
- Could probably do with some guidelines for access to fisheries, though, right?
- International Seed Treaty secretariat knocks ‘em dead down under. “THREE-quarters of the world’s crop biodiversity has been irrevocably lost since 1900.”
- Of course it has. Did Dr Bhatti visit this place during his tour of Oz, I wonder? If not, maybe he’ll visit Mexico next and see this place. And speaking of Mexico…
- Mexico sneezes, US grain exports catch a cold?
- World record potato harvest in Bihar; there’s a lot that’s fishy about this story.
- “Khat cultivation in Ethiopia fuels economy, reduces deforestation.” And makes people sick, but who’s counting.
- Ah but here’s a possible alternative. Now, if only CIFOR and ILRI would talk together about this.
Nibbles: Ancient sauce, Easter eggs, REDD and biodiversity
- Ancient fish sauce recreated.
- Easter egg symbolism deconstructed.
- Monitoring biodiversity in REDD projects. Including CWR?