Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

April 9, 2019April 9, 2019

Free book on mapping species

The book in question is Mapping Species Distributions: Spatial Inference and Prediction by Janet Franklin, from 2010 I think. Here’s the blurb:

Maps of species’ distributions or habitat suitability are required for many aspects of environmental research, resource management and conservation planning. These include biodiversity assessment, reserve design, habitat management and restoration, species and habitat conservation plans and predicting the effects of environmental change on species and ecosystems. The proliferation of methods and uncertainty regarding their effectiveness can be daunting to researchers, resource managers and conservation planners alike. Franklin summarises the methods used in species distribution modeling (also called niche modeling) and presents a framework for spatial prediction of species distributions based on the attributes (space, time, scale) of the data and questions being asked. The framework links theoretical ecological models of species distributions to spatial data on species and environment, and statistical models used for spatial prediction. Providing practical guidelines to students, researchers and practitioners in a broad range of environmental sciences including ecology, geography, conservation biology, and natural resources management.

Have fun.

April 8, 2019April 8, 2019

Brainfood: Agrobiodiversity drivers, Wild bean adaptation, Berseem breeding, Millet mutants, IK conservation, NUS, Vertebrate threats, Ethiopian nutrition, Maize landraces, Maize phenotyping, Musa chemotypes, Ancient farmers, Vavilov’s steps, Bean diversity, Wild wheat

Agricultural Biodiversity Maintenance in a Coastal Socio-Ecological System: the Pearl Lagoon Basin, Nicaragua. Roads are not always bad for agrobiodiversity.
Signatures of Environmental Adaptation During Range Expansion of Wild Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Candidate genes for increased water use efficiency identified.
Genetic Improvement of Berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) in India: Current Status and Prospects. Including using wild relatives, which was surprising to me.
Generation and characterization of a foxtail millet (Setaria italica) mutant library. Who needs landraces.
Storing and sharing: A review of indigenous and local knowledge conservation initiatives. Ex situ predominates, and local custodians are often excluded. Where have I heard this before?
Prospects of orphan crops in climate change. They’re great. But didn’t we already know this?
Energy and nutrient production in Ethiopia, 2011-2015: Implications to supporting healthy diets and food systems. I guess maybe we didn’t know it. Production has increased, but at the expense of diversity, and nutrient deficits remain.
Hotspots of human impact on threatened terrestrial vertebrates. 1200 species impacted by threats over >90% of their range. I wonder how many livestock wild relatives.
Testcross performance of doubled haploid lines from European flint maize landraces is promising for broadening the genetic base of elite germplasm. “Idle genetic diversity from gene banks” gets busy.
High-throughput method for ear phenotyping and kernel weight estimation in maize using ear digital imaging. Apply to above?
Genetic analysis of Okra Yellow Vein Mosaic Virus disease resistance in wild relative of okra Abelmoschus angulosus Wall. ex Wight & Arn.Smacks of desperation.
Metabolite profiling characterises chemotypes of Musa diploids and triploids at juvenile and pre-flowering growth stages. Unsurprisingly follows the genetics.
Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia. Not much migration after all.
Following Vavilov’s expeditions, Sardinia (Italy). Lots of changes in 90 years. There’s a shocker.
Analyses of African common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) germplasm using a SNP fingerprinting platform: diversity, quality control and molecular breeding. Lots of naming inconsistencies among breeding materials. Another shocker.
Potential of Aegilops sp. for Improvement of Grain Processing and Nutritional Quality in Wheat (Triticum aestivum). Not just Fe and Zn.

April 3, 2019April 3, 2019

Normally I would put this sort of stuff in a Brainfood, but the most recent issue of Genetic resources and Crop Evolution had no fewer than 4 papers alerting readers to the existence of interesting germplasm of important crops, so I decided to share them all together now rather than wait:

Interspecific yam hybrids with anthracnose resistance from the Pacific.
Bread wheat from India: “Accession No. IC128643 was found to be the most promising accession that has resistance against three rusts, powdery mildew, Karnal bunt, loose smut and spot blotch. Accession no. IC36900, IC397999 and IC416249 showed resistance against three rusts, powdery mildew, Karnal bunt and loose smut while accession no. IC415971 and IC415977 showed resistance against three rusts, powdery mildew, spot blotch and loose smut.”
Evaluation of Vigna collections at VIR.
Super early pigeonpea from ICRISAT.

If you request any of this germplasm from the genebanks or researchers involved because of this alert, do let me know.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019

Coffee to fight hidden hunger

Micronutrient deficiencies continue to take a toll on global health. Deficiencies of the minerals calcium, iron and zinc impact vital bodily functions including bone strength, oxygen transport and the immune system. At the same time coffee, which is not known for its content of important micronutrients, is “the most consumed food product worldwide”. How can it have taken so long to create fortified coffee?

Scientists in Brazil (where they have an awful lot of coffee) recently announced the results of fortifying ground, roasted coffee with calcium, iron and zinc. Ten trained coffee tasters evaluated a series of mineral salts and chose the two best-tasting salts for each mineral. Despite a slight metallic aftertaste for even the best salts, and a greenish colour for the iron-fortified coffee, the tasters found the fortified coffee acceptable.

Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry revealed that each fortified brew, based on both Coffea arabica and C. canephora, contained greater amounts of the minerals than unfortified brews. Espresso consistently contained higher concentrations than drip coffee made with either a paper filter or a nylon filter.

The average Brazilian woman would obtain 7.4% of the USDA recommended daily intake of iron from fortified coffee. Men would get 16.7% of the RDI for iron. Equivalent figures for zinc are 4.6% of the RDI for women and 3.3% for men. Calcium is harder to assess, because “acute consumption of caffeine can increase the urinary excretion of this mineral and reduce bone formation”.

Having established that they can fortify coffee with important micronutrient minerals, the researchers now plan to investigate the use of nanoparticles, rather than soluble salts, and to examine “consumer acceptance, stability during storage, and microbiological safety”.

April 1, 2019April 1, 2019