- Patterns of nuclear and chloroplast genetic diversity and structure of manioc along major Brazilian Amazonian rivers. No structure related to river basins. Separate histories for sweet and bitter types, with the sweet domesticated and spreading first.
- Practical considerations for plant phylogenomics. Use the right tool for the job.
- The genetics of fruit flavour preferences. Here’s a “molecular roadmap to flavour improvement,” breeders. Now go crazy.
- Beyond Culinary Colonialism: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Liberal Multiculturalism, and the Control of Gastronomic Capital. Multiculturalism is incompatible with food sovereignty.
- Predicting genotypes environmental range from genome‐environment associations. Fraction of aridity-associated alleles in wild beet could accurately predict adaptation to aridity in independent set of cultivated individuals.
- Diversity of drought tolerance in the genus Vigna. No word on genotypes. But wilds more tolerant of drought in Vigna too.
- Identification of Drought, Heat, and Combined Drought and Heat Tolerant Donors in Maize. Only 2 out of 300 inbreds are resistant to both drought and heat. No word on how teosinte does.
- Benefit sharing mechanisms for agricultural genetic diversity use and in-situ conservation. Show me the money.
- The Nagoya Protocol could backfire on the Global South. It’s not just about the money.
- Invasion of a legume ecosystem engineer in a cold biome alters plant biodiversity. Biosafety first.
- Interspecific germ cell transplantation: a new light in the conservation of valuable Balkan trout genetic resources? Maybe.
99% genebanks
Svalbard is a remote Norwegian archipelago with reindeer, Arctic foxes and only around 2,500 humans — but it is also home to a vault containing seeds for virtually every edible plant one can imagine. The mountainside Crop Trust facility has thousands of varieties of corn, rice and more, serving as a seed backup for humanity. For each crop, there’s an envelope with 500 seeds.
Nice podcast, as ever, and glad they removed the reference to coconuts in the text, originally in there with rice and corn.
Potato Congress comes home
The 10th World Potato Congress starts today in Cuzco. If you’re there and the panoply of social networking opportunities available is not enough for you, let us know and we’ll give you a platform here.
How to help plants species get their mojo back
The Species Recovery Manual is just out, thanks to Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and the International Association of Botanic Gardens (IABG).
Species recovery involves many different disciplines and actors, and responsibility for it at a national level is often unclear, given that it cuts across different ministries and agencies. After various consultations, it was felt by BGCI and IABG that it would be valuable to produce a manual that would clarify the aims and purpose of species recovery, set out the various steps involved, and indicate good practice. This manual is aimed specifically at conservation practitioners but also includes comprehensive bibliographic references, which enable more in depth reading on the topics covered in this publication. The manual includes chapters and case studies from members of the Ecological Restoration Alliance of Botanic Gardens.
Lots of great advice on everything from planning to seed sampling strategies to community participation.
Brainfood: Cassava breeding, Teosinte gaps, Arabidopsis and CC, Urban pineapple, Minnesota apples, European CWR, Spiderplant review, British condiments, Yeast diversity, Diversity & productivity
- Toward improving photosynthesis in cassava: Characterizing photosynthetic limitations in four current African cultivars. The landraces are better at photosynthesis than the improved cultivars. Maybe because the aim of producing the latter was pest and disease resistance rather than yield.
- Ecogeography of teosinte. Only 11% in protected areas.
- A map of climate change-driven natural selection in Arabidopsis thaliana. Summer is coming.
- Urban backyards as a new model of pineapple germplasm conservation. Two thirds of citizen scientists did a really good job.
- Identification of unknown apple (Malus × domestica) cultivars demonstrates the impact of local breeding program on cultivar diversity. 330 unknown highly diverse trees in northern Minnesota, 264 unique genotypes, 76 matched to 20 named cultivars from local breeding program at the University of Minnesota, or imported Russian cultivars.
- Development of national crop wild relative conservation strategies in European countries. 30 countries: 13 in preparation stage, 14 with drafts, and 3 not yet started.
- Current knowledge and breeding perspectives for the spider plant (Cleome gynandra L.): a potential for enhanced breeding of the plant in Africa. I actually like the bitterness of the leaves.
- Condiments before Claudius: new plant foods at the Late Iron Age oppidum at Silchester, UK. Benefits of a customs union, I guess.
- Adaptation of S. cerevisiae to Fermented Food Environments Reveals Remarkable Genome Plasticity and the Footprints of Domestication. Genetics linked to lifestyle differences.
- Plant spectral diversity integrates functional and phylogenetic components of biodiversity and predicts ecosystem function. About 50% of variation in productivity in the Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment explained by spectral diversity.