- Effects of Introducing Threatened Falcons into Vineyards on Abundance of Passeriformes and Bird Damage to Grapes. Potential savings of US$234/ha for Sauvignon Blanc, more for Pinot Noir.
- Genetic characterization and gene flow in different geographical-distance neighbouring natural populations of wild soybean (Glycine soja Sieb. & Zucc.) and implications for protection from GM soybeans. There is a small amount of outcrossing, which decreases with distance. GM crops should be grown far from wild populations, certainly more than 1.5km. And we can work out better ways to collect for ex situ conservation.
- Phylogenetic relationships, interspecific hybridization and origin of some rare characters of wild soybean in the subgenus Glycine soja in China. Intermediate forms are closer to the wild than the cultivated species.
- Mitochondrial genomes from modern horses reveal the major haplogroups that underwent domestication. A diversity of maternal lines were domesticated about 150,000 years ago, leading to about 18 modern haplogroups. One of them is only found in the only remaining wild horse, E. przewalskii.
Nibbles: Mike Jackson blog, Philippines genebank fire, Ancient garden, USA maps, Horse domestication, Gnats, Livestock training, Chocolate, Epigenetics, Indian nutritional security, Kew fund, GM bananas, Reconciling databases
- Mike Jackson gets himself a pulpit. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mike!
- More on the Filipino ex-genebank.
- What they grew in an ancient Israelite garden. Can they really tell Citrus species apart from their pollen?
- More American maps to mashup with obesity and food insecurity: land use, renewable energy sources…. I do hope someone is keeping track. Even of the more esoteric stuff, of course, like the names of softdrinks.
- Yet more on horse domestication.
- Another organic farming externality for your consideration. Thanks, Robert.
- ILRI gets innovative on this whole training thing.
- “The future of chocolate” revealed.
- Boffins look at fossil bison epigenetics to investigate adaptation to climate change. What will they think of next. Well, applying it to chickens, for a start.
- Other boffins move potato anti-nematode genes into bananas. No word on the epigenetics of it all.
- Indian report on how to strengthen role of agriculture in nutrition.
- Kew has money for fieldwork.
- Cleaning messy taxonomic data. Useful in Genebank Database Hell?
Nibbles: Ancient animal DNA, Augustine Henry
- Big grant for TC Dublin to create DNA matrix of ancient livestock, will identify parchments too.
- Kew unites Augustine Henry’s letters with the objects and specimens he collected; agrobiodiversity included.
Nibbles: Educashun, Landscapes, Botany, AnGR, Tourism, Ham museum, Native American seeds, Ancient Egyptian grain storage, Ancient beer
- Want to teach about agrobiodiversity? Help is at hand.
- Want to learn about agrobiodiversity? Stay here.
- Want to know what’s going on in biodiversity conservation at Cambridge? Here’s how. Tell us if agriculture gets a look-in. If it doesn’t, come back here. But I bet there’ll be something about landscapes.
- What is a landscape? “The answer … differs tremendously depending on the respondent,” it says here. Wow, those Cambridge boffins will be so shocked.
- Want to know about the plants in that landscape whose definition is so much in the hands of respondents? Most were discovered by just a few botanical superstars. But how many women?
- And if that landscape is Turkish and there are (is?) livestock in it, this is what you’ll see.
- Want to tour the world’s top evolution sites? Here’s the first stop. Now, how about crop evolution (and domestication, natch) sites. Like some livestock- and crop-wild-relative-discovered-by-a-botanical-superstar-filled Turkish landscape, perhaps.
- Or what about sites connected with food production and marketing more generally, for that matter. No, that list would be too long. Interesting, but too long. Would need to prioritize ruthlessly.
- One thing for certain, though, it should include a couple of community genebanks.
- Where it is not inconceivable that seeds would be protected following age-old practices. Which may or may not be taught in fancy courses.
- Oh, and beer.
Crop wild relatives of the USA
I’ve just come across the Jepson Flora Project, which
brings together all of the floristic references and data of the Jepson Herbarium. Resources of the Flora Project are directly linked the the Consortium of California Herbaria, CalPhotos, the California Native Plant Society, California Exotic Pest Plant Council, USDA-Plants database, and many other external sites. The Friends of the Jepson Herbarium help the Jepson Flora project carry out its work.
It doesn’t look particularly nice, but I do like the idea of aggregating all kinds of information about each taxon, like Helianthus californicus for instance, via the Jepson Online Interchange. From that admittedly ugly page you can dig deeper, and for example get a digest of taxonomic, distribution and phenology information based on specimens from members of the Consortium of California Herbaria. They don’t make it particularly easy for you ((You have to walk the data through the Berkeley Mapper.)) but you can, wonder of wonders, even export the location data to Google Earth, where you can mess with it as you wish.
I wonder how many other US states have something similar. And whether all their data on crop wild relatives could then automagically be aggregated up to the national level. Colin, are you there?