Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

January 21, 2015January 21, 2015

Chefs help conserve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

I believe we have Nibbled both of these articles, but I think they could stand another few minutes in the limelight. One describes how self-described “farmer-scientist” Dr Brian Ward of Clemson University — with a little help from his friends — is bringing back from near extinction a peanut variety called Carolina Africa Runner:

Luckily, in the 1940s North Carolina State University collected samples of a variety of peanuts during a breeding program, and the Carolina’s germplasm was preserved.

The second article is about maverick Washington State University breeder Dr Stephen Jones’s attempts to come up with better tasting bread.

Several years ago, he started a project called the Bread Lab, a Washington State program that approaches grain breeding with a focus on the eventual culinary end goal. The idea came about because Jones says he was tired of the USDA and Big Ag dictating the traits that he needed to breed for. “They would tell us [a certain wheat variety] doesn’t make a good loaf of bread. Well, what they meant was an industrial, high-speed, mixing, full of junk, white — just lily-white — bread,” Jones says. “And we didn’t want that opinion, so we had nowhere to go.”

~~What~~One of the several things the stories have in common is the involvement of chefs. Now, there must also be one out there interested in heirloom fruits. Then we could bring them all together…

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015

ABS on genetic resources straight from the horse’s mouth

Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), recently gave a very nice, clear answer to a question on the relationship between the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regimes of the CBD and of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. It was at the Special Event on Food Security and Genetic Diversity at FAO last Friday, which preceded the Fifteenth Regular Session of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources, which started yesterday. You can hear what he says in a couple of different ways. You can fast forward to about 2:07:30 in the video of the event on the FAO website, and watch for about 3 minutes. Or, if you don’t mind only listening, you can click below. Dr Ferreira de Souza Dias focuses on Annex 1 of the Treaty, but of course the collections listed under Article 15 are in the same boat. The questioner is my old friend Desterio Nyamongo, head of Kenya’s genebank.

January 20, 2015January 17, 2015

European livestock breed conservation assessed

A further addition to the mass of online information on livestock genetic resources around the world. It’s the final report of the SUBSIBREED project, providing and “Overview and assessment of support measures for endangered livestock breeds” in Europe. It was put together by the European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources (ERFP), which is hosted by the Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity (IBV) of the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE)
in Bonn, Germany. I suppose the information will eventually find its way into the relevant databases?

Screen Shot 2015-01-17 at 1.53.55 PM

January 19, 2015January 19, 2015

Brainfood: Safflower diversity, Afghan wheat diversity, Cassava diversity, SP drought tolerance, Olive diversity, Community genebanks, Organic yield meta-analysis, On farm success, Standardizing phenotyping, Wild collecting

Assessment of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in a Global Reference Collection of 531 Accessions of Carthamus tinctorius L. (Safflower) Using AFLP Markers. Bayesian analysis of genetic diversity of global (43 countries) collection held in India reveals 19 geographic groups, with most diversity in the Near East and Iran–Afghanistan regions.
Molecular evaluation of orphan Afghan common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) landraces collected by Dr. Kihara using single nucleotide polymorphic markers. Analysis (Bayesian, natch) of genetic diversity of over 400 wheat landraces collected 1950-1970 and conserved at the Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Japan reveals agroecological patterning and hotspot in Badakhshan province.
Sources of pest resistance in cassava. Analysis of 89 trials over 25 years involving the CIAT cassava collection identifies 129 landraces with high resistance to thrips, 33 to green mites and 19 to whiteflies.
Screening sweetpotato genotypes for tolerance to drought stress. Days to permanent wilting point (DPWP) points to 8 promising clones in Kenya.
Olive domestication and diversification in the Mediterranean Basin. About 400 wild and cultivated accessions divide up into W, central and E groups and show evidence of admixture among them and local domestication events.
The Multiple Functions and Services of Community Seedbanks. More than just conservation.
Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap. More data and fancier maths finds a lower organic yield gap (20%), which is halved by multi-cropping and crop rotations.
Conserving landraces and improving livelihoods: how to assess the success of on farm conservation projects? All you need is two graphs.
Finding Our Way through Phenotypes. “We urge all biologists, data managers, and clinicians to actively support the development, evaluation, refinement, and adoption of methodologies, tools, syntaxes, and standards for capturing and computing over phenotypic data and to collaborate in bringing about a coordinated approach.” Amen.
Wild food in Europe: A synthesis of knowledge and data of terrestrial wild food as an ecosystem service. 65 million people collect, and at least 100 million consume, wild food. But only 81 plants? Thought it would be more. But even so, quite an ecosystem service.

January 17, 2015January 17, 2015

Global Forest Genetic Resources: Taking Stock

December saw the publication of a special, open access issue of Forest Ecology and Management on “Global Forest Genetic Resources: Taking Stock.” Ian Dawson, one of the editors, has blogged chez nous about a couple of the papers. Here is the full table of contents, with links to both the papers and Ian’s posts.

Loo J, Souvannavong O, Dawson IK (2014) Seeing the trees as well as the forest: the importance of managing forest genetic resources. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 1-8.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.08.014

Dawson IK, Leakey R, Clement CR, Weber JC, Cornelius JP, Roshetko JM, Vinceti B, Kalinganire A, Tchoundjeu Z, Masters E, Jamnadass R (2014) The management of tree genetic resources and the livelihoods of rural communities in the tropics: non-timber forest products, smallholder agroforestry practices and tree commodity crops. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 9-21.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.01.021

Koskela J, Vinceti B, Dvorak W, Bush D, Dawson IK, Loo J, Kjaer ED, Navarro C, Padolina C, Bordács S, Jamnadass R, Graudal L, Ramamonjisoa L (2014) Utilization and transfer of forest genetic resources: a global review. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 22-34.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.07.017

Graudal L, Aravanopoulos F, Bennadji Z, Changtragoon S, Fady B, Kjær ED, Loo J, Ramamonjisoa L, Vendramin GG (2014) Global to local genetic diversity indicators of evolutionary potential in tree species within and outside forests. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 35-51.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.05.002

Wickneswari R, Rajora OP, Finkeldey R, Aravanopoulos F, Bouvet J-M, Vaillancourt RE, Kanashiro M, Fady B, Tomita M, Vinson C (2014) Genetic effects of forest management practices: global synthesis and perspectives. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 52-65.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.06.008

Thomas E, Jalonen R, Loo J, Boshier D, Gallo L, Cavers S, Bordács S, Smith P, Bozzano M (2014) Genetic considerations in ecosystem restoration using native tree species. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 66-75.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.07.015

Alfaro RI, Fady B, Vendramin GG, Dawson IK, Fleming RA, Sáenz-Romero C, Lindig-Cisneros RA, Murdock T, Vinceti B, Navarro CM, Skrøppa T, Baldinelli G, El-Kassaby YA, Loo J (2014) The role of forest genetic resources in responding to biotic and abiotic factors in the context of anthropogenic climate change. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 76-87.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.04.006

Pritchard HW, Moat JF, Ferraz JBS, Marks TR, Camargo JLC, Nadarajan J, Ferraz IDK (2014) Innovative approaches to the preservation of forest trees. Forest Ecology and Management, 333, 88-98.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.08.012

I wonder how many of the recently-published top 20 research questions on forestry and landscapes we can now tick off.