- Broad-scale adaptive genetic variation in alpine plants is driven by temperature and precipitation. AFLP variation linked to precipitation and temperature across 13 Alpine species.
- Current state of knowledge on indigenous chicken genetic resources of the tropics: domestication, distribution and documentation of information on the genetic resources. There are three relevant databases on chickens, and yet…
- Genetic diversity and parentage in farmer varieties of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) from Honduras and Nicaragua as revealed by single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. 70 SNPs enough to confirm 5 morphological groups, but also pick up the odd synonym.
- Molecular diversity and phylogenetic relationships of Pistacia vera, Pistacia atlantica subsp. mutica and Pistacia khinjuk using SRAP markers. The species are pretty good.
- Biofortified, selenium enriched, fruit and cladode from three Opuntia Cactus pear cultivars grown on agricultural drainage sediment for use in nutraceutical foods. It pays to grow prickly pear on crappy soil.
- Hotspots of diversity of wild Australian soybean relatives and their conservation in situ. Looks like it’s Kimberley.
- Community-based alternative breeding plans for indigenous sheep breeds in four agro-ecological zones of Ethiopia. They’re ok, but you do have to keep good records.
- Diverse genetic basis of field-evolved resistance to Bt cotton in cotton bollworm from China. Gene jockeys need to go back to drawing board. No, wait.
- Bioactive compounds and nutritional significance of virgin argan oil–an edible oil with potential as a functional food. Jolly high in just about everything that’s good for you, more research needed, yada yada yada.
Featured: Genebank payments
Ehsan reminds us of one of the complexities of genebanks charging for accessions:
Often genebanks holds collections arising from other countries from which the accession has been collected. Then, how ethical would it be for a country to request for materials collected from its country and have to pay for it. I think this is another point which should be taken in to consideration.
Lots of other comments, do have a look and add your own.
Where did the purple potato come from?
This post is not really about purple potatoes. It is, rather, a shameless attempt to connect with Adam Mars Jones, a well-known author. In the course of eviscerating Martin Amis, another well-known author, Mars Jones writes the following:
The same sense of lostness clings to social attitudes. When Des finds a girlfriend, Dawn, the only problem is her racist father, Horace. He’s not just a racist but a throwback of a racist: ‘Your brain’s smaller and a different shape. Whilst hers is normal, yours is closer to a primate’s.’ In the allotment of nasty social attitudes this contorted purple tuber must count as a heritage potato, miraculously re-established from a seed bank.
Which is enough to bring us up short. I’m not entirely sure what point Mars Jones is trying to make — contorted purple tubers being just the job under the right (marginal, high-altitude) circumstances — I do wonder what made him think of that particular metaphor, complete with interesting reference to “seed bank”.
So if you know the man himself, or know someone who might, do please ask and relay his answer.
Getting journals to map species
We believe that implementation of a data-archiving policy by biodiversity and conservation journals would drive a large amount of species occurrence data across broad geographic and taxonomic ranges into biodiversity databases.
Uhm, something for the weekend, perhaps. Maybe even in conjunction with this. Or maybe I’ll just watch the football…
Markets in everything, food security edition
I know, I know, there’s been much more talk about market failure in the past couple of years than about market success. Case in point: a clever interactive map has been done showing you where markets have been bad for biodiversity, but not one showing where they’ve been good.
But all that negativity hasn’t stopped Dougal Thomson just launching a discussion on what the private sector can do for food security. It’s all to get you interested in The Economist’s Feeding the World conferences later this year of course. And to put you in an appropriately market-friendly mood for Rio +20 next week too, I suppose.
Anyway, here’s where, recession or no recession, you can channel your inner capitalist and tell the world how to “…reconcile a multinational’s need for profit with a smallholder’s need for income, a mother’s need to feed her baby and a nation’s need for food security.”