- Scientific Selection – A Century of Increasing Crop Varietal Diversity in US Wheat. Whether you take into account the genetic relationship among varieties or not, breeding has been driving up wheat diversity in American fields. But anyone else think this is a bit of a straw man?
- Novel GBS-Based SNP Markers for Finger Millet and Their Use in Genetic Diversity Analyses. The Zimbabwean and Ethiopian landraces are different and should be crossed more to inject some diversity into improved varieties. You mean like they did for wheat in the US?
- On-Farm Diversity of Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman) Landraces, Use, and the Associated Indigenous Knowledge in Adola Rede District, Guji Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. No problem with diversity in enset, at least morphologically speaking.
- Food and Power in Early Medieval England: a lack of (isotopic) enrichment. Elite “Anglo-Saxon” males did not have a diet that was consistently higher in meat than anyone else at the time, so there. I wonder if any ever ate enset.
- Assessment of agrobiodiversity in the intensive agriculture: a case study of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. Could do with some more legumes.
- Community-based rangeland management in Namibia improves resource governance but not environmental and economic outcomes. Market incentives do not always work the way you think.
- The palm trees choose the places – Popular knowledge associated with the use and conservation of butiá (Butia spp.). No word on market incentives.
- Shoot tip cryotherapy for plant pathogen eradication. Especially good if combined with thermotherapy or chemotherapy. May even work on enset, for all I know.
- The phytoplasma associated with Bogia coconut syndrome in Papua New Guinea is a new phytoplasma in the group of the lethal yellowing syndromes (LYTS) of coconut and other palms. Yeah but will cryotherapy work?
- Implementation of species distribution models in Google Earth Engine. Shhh, or everyone will want to do it, and then where will we be.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Moroccan Beni Ahsen: Is This Endangered Ovine Breed One of the Ancestors of Merino? Maybe? Partly? Does it matter?
The limits of protected areas
There’s an interesting paper just out in Nature entitled “Protected areas have a mixed impact on waterbirds, but management helps.” It’s unfortunately behind a paywall, but one of the authors, Dr Julia Jones, has done a helpful Twitter thread about it, which I’ve unspooled here if you dislike social media. There’s also mainstream media coverage, of course.
Do protected areas effectively conserve species populations? Our paper out today in @Nature tries to answer this really important question.https://t.co/XFzLS5Iqmr
— Julia Jones (@juliapgjones) April 20, 2022
The authors analysed data on waterbird populations before and after protection of sites, mainly in North America and Europe, as collected by thousands of volunteers. They found a mixed and confusing picture, with designation of a protected area having a wide range of impacts from negative to positive on the population sizes of the birds found therein.
Disappointing, I know, but there was a ray of light. As the title of the paper says, management made a difference. If the protected area was specifically managed with waterbirds in mind, then the impact of protection was more likely to be positive.
Which is why some of us who are interested in the conservation of things other than birds think there should be a global network of protected sites for crop wild relatives (CWR). In the same way that we just can’t rely on the generalised protection afforded by legal designation of a national park, or whatever, to do anything for waterbirds, we can’t expect it a priori to do anything for CWR either.
But does that mean that we’ll need millions of protected areas around the world, each specialising only in this or that species or group of species? I don’t think so. What we do need is for the CWR conservation community to work closely with the managers of existing protected areas to make sure that the correct interventions are applied to make sure that the CWR populations which happen to occur within their borders are able to thrive. That would probably not be enough, and it may well be necessary to set up some additional protected areas specifically devoted to CWR. But it would be a good start. And we do have a good a good evidence base. 1
Incidentally, some of authors of the waterbirds paper have another paper out, “Language barriers in global bird conservation,” which is also well worth reading. About 15% of the more than 10,000 birds they looked at have geographic distributions within which more than 10 languages are spoken. And even when you control for area, threatened birds have significantly more languages spoken within their distributions. Which clearly is a challenge for conservation. I wonder if there’s something similar happening with CWR.
Nibbles: Eat this tomato, Access to Seeds Index, Tongan coconuts, Grounding the groundnut, Traditional Spain, Genebanks in China and Nigeria, Tree conservation, Sorghum & millet breeding, Iraqi ag, Genebank presentations
- Jeremy gets into tomato domestication and diversity on his podcast.
- The 2021 Access to Seeds Index Insights Report is out, and includes tomatoes.
- What is the most famous place for coconut varieties?
- A new book attempts to decolonize the peanut.
- Blood and water in Spain.
- A tale of two genebanks: China and Nigeria. Maybe the African Union can help? If not, maybe China might.
- Africa needs help with tree planting too. Maybe follow Italy’s example?
- Though maybe sorghum and millet will be ok.
- Send them to Iraqi farmers?
- Presentations on seed conservation and use in genebanks.
The Guardian on the guardians of agrobiodiversity
There’s a big series on agricultural biodiversity unfolding in The Guardian. So far we’ve had the following:
- Our food system isn’t ready for the climate crisis, including pithy quote from yours truly.
- Seed banks: the last line of defense against a threatening global food crisis, including pithy quote from my boss.
- ‘We’re running out of time’: Dan Saladino on why the loss of diversity in our foods matters, including numerous pithy quotes from Dan.
- Blue corn and melons: meet the seed keepers reviving ancient, resilient crops, including pithy quotes from Roxanne Swentzell and others.
I’m not sure how much more there is to come, but I hope it keeps going a while yet.
LATER: There was indeed more!
Brainfood: Ultra-processed food, Micronutrients, Wheat breeding, Bambara groundnut breeding, Seed longevity, Sheep diversity, Switchgrass ploidy, Seed services, Jersey in Africa, Wine history, Austronesian dispersal
- Ultra-processed foods should be central to global food systems dialogue and action on biodiversity. Should.
- Global plant diversity as a reservoir of micronutrients for humanity. As.
- Mainstreaming grain zinc and iron concentrations in CIMMYT wheat germplasm. Eventually.
- Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources of Bambara Groundnut Conserved Ex Situ and Genetic Diversification of Its Primary Genepool for Semi-Arid Production. Insufficient.
- More on seed longevity phenotyping. p50.
- Gender dynamics around introduction of improved forages in Kenya and Ethiopia. Training.
- Whole-Genome Resequencing of Worldwide Wild and Domestic Sheep Elucidates Genetic Diversity, Introgression, and Agronomically Important Loci. Hairy.
- Jersey cattle in Africa: From the Breed’s Documented Past to a Profit IndexLinked Future. Promising?
- A generalist–specialist trade-off between switchgrass cytotypes impacts climate adaptation and geographic range. Polyploidy!
- Decentralized Seed Services in Africa. Quality.
- The Rise of Wine among Ancient Civilizations across the Mediterranean Basin. Ritual.
- Genome Analysis Traces Regional Dispersal of Rice in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Ok, I give up, I can’t do this. Austronesian speakers did not spread out of Taiwan because of rice. If you can summarize that in a word, I’m impressed, so let me know.