Wild relatives

July 25, 2011July 25, 2011

Tweeting the 18th International Botanical Congress

As I’ve just nibbled, the Annals of Botany bloggers are at the 18th International Botanical Congress in Melbourne, and doing a great job of reporting on emerging issues. But there’s lot of other people there too, and many of them are tweeting. You can follow them all on the #IBC18 hashtag.

LATER: Science in Public is “helping run the media program for the event.”

July 25, 2011July 25, 2011

Nibbles: IBC18, Sustainable intensification, Macadamia, Endangered turtle, Transgenic grass skirts

More on #IBC18 from AoB. Web 2.0 as it should be.
EurActive.com with massive dossier on sustainable intensification in Europe. Not much diversification there, though, except for intercropping.
Boffins look for wild macadamias with thinner shells for wimpy consumers. Well, not just that.
The ancient Maya mixed up their turtles.
Grass skirts latest GMO fear.

July 24, 2011July 23, 2011

Photoguide to West African plants online

This interactive photographic guide ((Brunken, U., Schmidt, M., Dressler, S., Janssen, T., Thiombiano, A. & Zizka, G. 2008. West African plants – A Photo Guide. www.westafricanplants.senckenberg.de. – Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.)) shall help you to identify higher plants from West African ecosystems. It contains images of ferns and seed plants taken in the field. You can browse through a taxonomic hierarchy and/or search according to selected characters you observe on your plant.

Have we linked to this before? I seem to remember doing so, but can’t find the evidence. Anyway, it includes cultivated plants.

July 22, 2011July 22, 2011

Nibbles: AnGR, Fruit trees, IBC18, Tree pollination, Solomon Islands and climate change, Octopus diversity, Seed saving

Livestock diversity in the hands of FAO. No comment.
Let them eat fruit!
AoB breaks down International Botanical Congress 18 for us.
Species-poor tree plantations could be good for conservation of rare tree found in remnant forest patches in Chile because they encourage pollinators to move on. Agriculture, on other hand, is bad because it lures generalist pollinators into staying. Nature, don’t you just love it?
Climate-proofing the Solomon Islands to include “the isolation of crop species tolerant of high salinity, high rainfall, and drought.” Strewth.
Marine diversity. (Only kidding.)
Good advice on home seed saving from Suzanne Ashworth. She wrote the (a?) book.

July 20, 2011July 20, 2011

Nibbles: Gaur, AnGR, Wild Plants blog, Potato genebank, Research, Forests, Climate change

Cattle do the wild thing in Vietnam.
West African Ruminant Livestock: The Movie.
An interesting new botanical blog on me.
Who says working in a genebank is unrewarding? Technician is honoured with award, and that is not an oca she’s fondling?
Back40 dissects the trouble with agriculture; it isn’t dignified. Well, it is, but …
Forests are really, really good for economies.
Andy Jarvis pulls it all together: looking forward to a climatically less diverse world.