Ok, so it’s International Day for Biodiversity today and we had this really cool idea about how to celebrate it this year. You’ll recall the theme is Biodiversity and Agriculture, so we figured we had to do something sensational, this being the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog and all. Basically Jeremy and I were going to dress up as vegetables (or fruits — there was much debate on the subject, although thankfully not on the status of the tomato) and run through the Roman Forum shouting anti-biofuel slogans to the tune of “Taxes on the farmer feeds us all.”
Pollinator diversity, pollination services and landscape change
That’s the title (or part of it) of a guest editorial ((Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter, Catrin Westphal (2008) The interplay of pollinator diversity, pollination services and landscape change. Journal of Applied Ecology 45(3), 737–741 doi:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01483.x)) in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Ecology which introduces a Special Profile entitled “Pollination and Pollinators” (mainly bees, actually).
The papers in this Special Profile cover several of these topics: two papers address the impact of habitat fragmentation and semi-natural landscape elements for population densities, species richness and community composition of bees (Brosi et al. 2008; Osborne et al. 2008). The next three papers focus on the combined effects of local and landscape-scale land use intensity and semi-natural or natural landscape elements on pollinators (Kohler et al. 2008; Rundlöf, Bengtsson & Smith 2008; Winfree et al. 2008). The last two papers focus on pollination functions and consider cross-pollination rates in a major crop (Devaux et al. 2008) and plant–pollinator networks in heathlands (Forup et al. 2008).
The papers are behind paywalls, but the abstracts are still quite useful.
I guess the overall message is that “land use intensification and habitat fragmentation do not only affect pollinator diversity and abundance, but also pollination services” because “pollination success of insect-pollinated plant species is usually not dependent on single, highly specialized pollinator species, but rather on a diverse community of pollinators.” In some places, of course, bees have lots more to contend with.
Not just what you cook, but how you cook it
An article in the New York Times explains that different cooking methods change the nutritional value of different vegetables. There are some surprises there, which may be of interest to people aiming to get the maximum benefit from their veggies. Overall, though, I suspect those who can afford to decide whether to bake, boil or microwave are least likely to need their micronutrients, while those who have no choice also have the greatest need.
Convention on Biological Diversity
I don’t suppose anyone needs reminding, but COP 9 is on in Bonn, and agricultural biodiversity is on the menu. You can watch some of it online if you’re not there in person. But if you’re there, and something interesting happens, do let us know! Oh, and of course this Thursday is International Day for Biological Diversity, and the theme is Biodiversity and Agriculture.
News from the front
Regular readers know that I value reports from people working with rural farmers to try and improve things. I confess I don’t subscribe to them all — life’s too short — but they generally turn up in one of my searches or another. The implication is that if either of these is new to you, you might want to go back and get a flavour of the blogs’ history. Anyway …
Stu in Rwanda regales us with a house-warming party and, more to the point, a little update on the project he’s working on. Take two women, working the same size plot. One is growing five white, starchy staples. She’s growing them well, but that’s all she’s growing, and her child is in the malnutrition ward. Her neighbour “had incorporated small-scale livestock, was improving her land with manure and compost, and had diversified with perennial fruits and annual vegetables”. Why the difference? Well, that’s what Stu is trying to find out. And you can find out why he is happy when his stuff gets stolen; shades of Parmentier’s potatoes.
In Ghana, Jenneke describes the difficulties of getting farmers to share accurate information. It’s all a question of local norms. Asking a Ghanaian how many cows he has is, it seems, a bit like asking a Dutchman how much he has in the bank. And while the Dutch are reticent on the topic of what I like to call “night soil,” Ghanaians are forthright: “We would love to get the shit from the city, with that the crops grow well, but a lot of people want to have it. Only when you pay they give it to you”. Will Jenneke get the data she (?) needs?
Maybe I will subscribe.