Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

September 11, 2020September 11, 2020

The latest biodiversity mega-papers, tweeted

Always great when someone summarizes three major biodiversity publications for you in one tweet.

Big hitters in #conservation today, in a nutshell:

1) #Biodiversity has declined globally for decades https://t.co/Hng7j2VU0n @WWF

2) but we've prevented some extinctions https://t.co/tx7WV77adh @ConLetters

3) and could reverse loss by 2050 https://t.co/0VmBfDOCBT @nature pic.twitter.com/TH3esC8wA9

— Joe W Bull (@wildbusiness) September 10, 2020

Just in case something happens to that tweet, here’s the text:

Big hitters in conservation today, in a nutshell:

Biodiversity has declined globally for decades https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-gb/

but we’ve prevented some extinctions https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12762

and could reverse loss by 2050 https://nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2705-y

And thanks to Joe Bull for saving me a lot of work.

Oh, and here’s a further spoiler from Twitter for the last paper on the list.

Avoiding future biodiversity losses will require ALL of these: (i) sustainable agricultural intensification, (ii) trade, (iii) reduced food waste, (iv) more plant-based human diets, and (v) increased extent and management of protected areas.https://t.co/pqOiPBY7uv

— Olivier Honnay (@olivierhonnay) September 10, 2020

September 8, 2020September 11, 2020

Welcome to the world, Kurt

What can you do about inbreeding in a small population of a species that nearly went extinct? Well, if the species is Przewalski’s horse, one thing you can do is inject some new diversity into the genepool by cloning a genetically very distinct stallion whose cells you happened to put in liquid nitrogen forty years ago. The whole amazing story is on the website of the Revive & Restore project.

This is huge. The first cloning for conservation.

It's a male Przewalski's horse ("shuh-VAL-ski") from 40 years ago, now revived to help enrich the genomes of the whole wild population.

Thanks to San Diego Zoo, ViaGen, and Revive & Restore https://t.co/zLy7A4xtvi pic.twitter.com/ZiFLByHtXq

— Stewart Brand (@stewartbrand) September 5, 2020

The new foal’s name is Kurt. Why?

Kurt is named in honor of Dr. Kurt Benirshke, a geneticist at the San Diego Zoo who in 1975 had a prescient idea. Dr. Benirshke began what is now the Frozen Zoo, collecting and cryopreserving the cell lines of endangered species and safely storing away genetic diversity before it was lost. At the time the collection was a bet on cloning and reproductive technologies that did not yet exist. Nearly fifty years later, with the partnership of San Diego Zoo Global Frozen Zoo, Revive & Restore, and ViaGen Pets and Equine, Dr. Benirschke’s plans are quite literally coming to life.

h/t Beth Shapiro.

LATER: A bit more background on Przewalski’s horse just out.

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020

Genesys learns taxonomy

Eh? Yep, you heard me.

With the recent adoption of the taxonomic backbone provided by GRIN Taxonomy, a search of Genesys for Solanum lycopersicum, which is the currently accepted name for the tomato in GRIN Taxonomy, will also return accessions documented as Lycopersicon esculentum, and indeed other synonyms.

Read all about it on the Genesys news page. And test it out.

Whether you like how it works, or not, leave comments below. I promise I’ll pass them on to the people in charge.

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020

Brainfood: Millet yields, Millet review, Taro genome, Salty sunflower, WorldVeg network, Phylorelatives, Bovine domestication, Diet quality, Nutrition metrics, Aztec diets, Complementary conservation, Post-2020, Climate change breeding

Using remote sensing to assess the effect of trees on millet yield in complex parklands of Central Senegal. Tree cover in the landscape of up to 35% increases pearl millet yields.
Genetic and genomic resources for improving proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.): a potential crop for food and nutritional security. All that’s missing is the investment. And, possibly, the trees.
A high-quality genome of taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott), one of the world’s oldest crops. Has benefitted from two whole-genome duplications. Now that this investment has been made, I expect to see the crop take off.
Key traits and genes associate with salinity tolerance independent from vigor in cultivated sunflower. There is a way to increase yield under salinity stress without affecting yield under more benign conditions. Millets and taro should take note.
Sustainable Cucurbit Breeding and Production in Asia Using Public–Private Partnerships by the World Vegetable Center. WorldVeg presents improved lines and F1 hybrids of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia), tropical pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata), ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula) and sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica) to private sector breeders at Crop Field Days. Everybody wins. But are there any private sector breeders of millets and taro to take note?
Crop Wild Phylorelatives (CWPs): phylogenetic distance, cytogenetic compatibility and breeding system data enable estimation of crop wild relative gene pool classification. Predicting crossability of a crop with its wild relatives from whatever data is on hand.
Evolution and domestication of the Bovini species. They’ve been very promiscuous, and the results can be summarized in one illustration.
Defining diet quality: a synthesis of dietary quality metrics and their validity for the double burden of malnutrition. Seven dietary metrics out there, none of them perfect.
Assessing nutritional, health, and environmental sustainability dimensions of agri-food production. Here’s how to make nutrition and health metrics better. Maybe these guys should get together with the above?
Aztec diets at the residential site of San Cristobal Ecatepec through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of bone collagen. The men drank more pulque than the women. I wonder if 500 years from now they’ll be judging us like this.
The unique role of seed banking and cryobiotechnologies in plant conservation. Good summary of the different ex situ approaches available for plants, none of them perfect. The existence of an Exceptional Plant Conservation Network and a Project Baseline for seed genebanks was news to me.
Making the post-2020 global biodiversity framework a successful tool for building biodiverse, inclusive, resilient and safe food systems for all. The CBD needs to learn to love mixed, diverse agricultural landscapes. And genebanks, natch. Maybe it should invest in dietary metrics.
The Role of Genetic Resources in Breeding for Climate Change: The Case of Public Breeding Programmes in Eighteen Developing Countries. Business as usual, except more intense. Oh, and perhaps more use of landraces. No word on dietary metrics.

September 3, 2020

Biodiversity loss in experiments and in real life

A large body of research shows that biodiversity loss can reduce ecosystem functioning.

You don’t say. Several years ago we half-heartedly attempted to summarize the literature here a couple of times. We’ve sort of given up on that of late: there’s just too much of it. But there is a fundamental problem with this literature…

…much of the evidence for this relationship is drawn from biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments in which biodiversity loss is simulated by randomly assembling communities of varying species diversity, and ecosystem functions are measured.

Fear not, though, help is at hand. The two quotes above are from the abstract of a paper bearing the following title.

The results of biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments are realistic.

Phew.