- Global wind patterns shape genetic differentiation, asymmetric gene flow, and genetic diversity in trees. The wind is blowing the answer, my friend.
- Social network analysis of the genealogy of strawberry: retracing the wild roots of heirloom and modern cultivars. Some 1500 contributors to the current, quite diverse cultivated genepool, from numerous species.
- Is Domestication Speciation? The Implications of a Messy Domestication model in the Holocene. They could have used the above as an additional example. But the answer to the question in the title seems to be that it doesn’t matter much, and I’m there for that.
- Phenotypic divergence between the cultivated apple (Malus domestica) and its primary wild progenitor (Malus sieversii). Oh, look, you don’t need fancy genotyping to tell that wild and cultivated apples are different species. No word on the role of global wind patterns though.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of advanced clones selected over forty years by a potato breeding program in the USA. Going from 214 to 43 clones doesn’t seem a game worth the candle, but someone will no doubt set me right.
- The Adoption of Landraces of Durum Wheat in Sicilian Organic Cereal Farming Analysed Using a System Dynamics Approach. Follow the money.
- Rediscovering ‘Mexican June’: a nearly extinct landrace maize (Zea mays L.) variety. Yes, there is money in organic systems.
- Modeling impacts of faster productivity growth to inform the CGIAR initiative on Crops to End Hunger. Following the money.
- Nutritional diversity and community perceptions of health and importance of foods in Kiribati: a case study. Local foods are seen to be healthier than imported, but nobody cares. Maybe because people are following the money?
- Governing crop genetics in post-Soviet countries: lessons from the biodiversity hotspot Armenia. Any progress that has been made is due to committed individuals. There’s a lesson there for us all.
- Archaeological science meets Māori knowledge to model pre-Columbian sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) dispersal to Polynesia’s southernmost habitable margins. Archaeology confirms traditional oral history. A lesson there too.
- Factors influencing household pulse consumption in India: A multilevel model analysis. Households that grown more pulses, eat more pulses. There endeth the lesson.
Perbacco!
Macquarie University archaeologist Emlyn Dodd has a great thread over on Twitter summarizing the latest evidence for an earlier-than-generally-thought introduction of viticulture and wine-making into Bronze Age Italy.
https://twitter.com/emlynkd/status/1392028944405127169?s=12
We’re basically talking about Mycenaean involvement, rather than the conventional story based on intrepid wine-obsessed Phoenicians crossing the wine-dark sea.
As ever, for the Twitter-averse, here’s the ThreadReader version.
Managing seed on the web
The ambition of the CoEx ((Gouvernance adaptative des stratégies de gestion de la diversité cultivée)) project is to improve our understanding of the gap between (1) seed policies and laws and (2) farmers’ seed management practices. Such a gap is detrimental to the access and mobilization of a wide variety of seeds by farmers.
Intrigued? Speak French? There’s a webinar on the project today.
Feed on a better food system
I missed WWF’s report Bending the Curve: The Restorative Power of Planet-Based Diets when it came out in October last year, but the interview with one of the authors, Brent Loken, on the Feed podcast was an excellent way to catch up.
Well worth listening to the whole thing, and indeed reading the report. I really like it when complexity and nuance are embraced, and silver bullets eschewed. Here’s a few take-aways to whet your, ahem, appetite:
- Shift diets: it’s not that hard. Start by de-centering beef.
- Reform national dietary guidelines.
- Regulate marketing food to kids.
- And, speaking of marketing, learn how to make healthy food sexier.
- Cut waste.
Brainfood: Filbert genome, Weed evaluation, Cocoa bugs, Grass genes, Perennial ag, Forage quality, Forest gardens, Protected areas, Anthropocene, Pollinators, Neolithic burials, House mice
- The Corylus mandshurica genome provides insights into the evolution of Betulaceae genomes and hazelnut breeding. Yeah, but can it make Nutella better?
- Widely assumed phenotypic associations in Cannabis sativa lack a shared genetic basis. More work needed. Much more work.
- Dissecting industrial fermentations of fine flavour cocoa through metagenomic analysis. There’s a core of microorganisms in common even in very distant farms. Though I suspect the fun will be in the others.
- Widespread lateral gene transfer among grasses. Especially in rhizomatous species. That should relieve the anxiety about genetic modification, right? Right.
- An agroecological vision of perennial agriculture. Wait, what about those rhizomatous perennial grasses, though?
- Comparison of benchtop and handheld near‐infrared spectroscopy devices to determine forage nutritive value. The handheld devices are just fine. How long before Alice asks Chris for some for the ILRI genebank? To test on rhizomatous grasses, of course.
- Historical Indigenous Land-Use Explains Plant Functional Trait Diversity. Forest gardens in the Pacific NW still have more diversity 150 years after their indigenous managers were forced off them.
- The minimum land area requiring conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity. 44% of terrestrial area, home to 1.8 billion people. Presumably including a lot of indigenous managers.
- People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years. 75% of terrestrial area, in fact.
- Protection of honeybees and other pollinators: one global study. Focus on habitat loss and pesticides. And more monitoring.
- A sexual division of labour at the start of agriculture? A multi-proxy comparison through grave good stone tool technological and use-wear analysis. Guess which gender was buried with tools associated with interpersonal violence.
- Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago. Well, hence the name, right?
- Commentary: Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future. Don’t warn. Resist.