- ‘White gold’ guano fertilizer drove agricultural intensification in the Atacama Desert from ad 1000. And maize was at the heart of it.
- What’s new during the first millennium BCE in Greece? Archaeobotanical results from Olynthos and Sikyon. Not maize, alas, but what you’d expect, plus pine and sesame.
- Local adaptation contributes to gene expression divergence in maize. Stress-response genes are the ones which have been selected. No word on whether any of them were important in the Atacama.
- Genotyping tools and resources to assess peanut germplasm: smut-resistant landraces as a case study. Ok, so it sounds like the resistant line that was previously used is virtually identical to an accession in the USDA collection.
- Do We Need to Identify Adaptive Genetic Variation When Prioritizing Populations for Conservation? No, but we’ll need it to prioritize use, surely?
- Incorporating Realistic Trait Physiology into Crop Growth Models to Support Genetic Improvement. We’ll need better growth models too.
- Wild to domesticates: genomes of edible diploid bananas hold traces of several undefined genepools. 3 of them, in fact, in both SE Asia and New Guinea.
- Evolution of the bread wheat D-subgenome and enriching it with diversity from Aegilops tauschii. Three lineages were involved in the hybridizations that led to bread wheat. Coincidence?
- De novo genome assembly of two tomato ancestors, Solanum pimpinellifolium and Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, by long-read sequencing. Thousands of genes not found in the cultivated crop, apparently.
- Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass. Introgression from the northern genepool (one of three) was really important in adaptation after the glaciers retreated. Gene duplication also involved in adaptation.
- Economic Studies Reinforce Efforts to Safeguard Specialty Crops in the United States. Where “safeguard” means “provide clean planting material.”
- Comparative analysis of genetic diversity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties cultivated in different periods in China. Diversity went up, then down, between the 1980s and the 2010s.
- Wheat Varietal Diversification Increases Ethiopian Smallholders’ Food Security: Evidence from a Participatory Development Initiative. Why the diversity in breeding programmes is important, and how farmer participation can help maintain it.
- The tricot citizen science approach applied to on-farm variety evaluation: methodological progress and perspectives. How to do the above.
- Biodiversity and conservation of Phoenix canariensis: a review. A wild relative in trouble, and what to do about it.
- Tropical and Mediterranean biodiversity is disproportionately sensitive to land-use and climate change. As can be seen from the above.
More light on Genesys
Attentive readers will know that I occasionally post references to Genesys, and sometimes even links to Genesys outputs, such as search results and maps. Some revision for inattentive readers: Genesys is a database that brings together passport data on accessions from multiple genebanks, and a web interface which allows you to explore the database in different ways.
Here I just wanted to point out three recent improvements:
- The huge amount of data from the USDA genebank system has been updated.
- The “how to use Genesys” blurb has been totally redone, hopefully for the better.
- A nifty little functionality which compares the passport data of accessions to identify possible duplicates has been added.
Any questions or suggestions, leave them below, and we’ll try to address them.
Seed storage seminars
The second Plantum Seed Technology Webinar is online tomorrow, 11 February at 3-4 PM CET. Register here.
- Jeremy Pardo (Van Buren lab, Michigan State University)
Co-option of seed dehydration pathways during drought and desiccation in grasses: Some grasses can survive typically lethal drought events through entering a dormant, desiccated state until the return of water. We aimed to find what distinguishes this unique desiccation tolerance response from conserved drought responses observed in all grasses. This study was done in collaboration with a.o. Henk Hilhorst (Wageningen University and Research). - Jae-Sung Lee (International Rice Research Institute)
Exploring anti-ageing properties in rice seeds: Specific seed metabolites such as anti-oxidants are known improve seed longevity. Based on metabolomic and genomic analyses, a few metabolites belonging to vitamin, flavonoid and amino acid groups were associated with seed longevity in rice. Using SNPs we identified the DNA-haplotypes regulating the accumulation of these metabolites. This study was done in collaboration with Fiona Hay (Aarhus University).
Changing the food system, piece by piece
Hot on the heels of the Dasgupta Review 1, here comes Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss, courtesy of Prof. Tim Benton of Chatham House and co-authors. Dasgupta said that losing biodiversity is bad, and we should try to stop it, and now. Benton says that the food system is to blame for biodiversity loss, and we can do something about it: by changing diets, by setting aside areas of nature and by farming more sustainably. He calls on the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) to embed a ‘food systems approach’ across key international processes, including UN climate negotiations.
Lawrence Haddad of GAIN is chair of Action Track 1 of the Summit: Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all. So it’s likely he gets a lot of advice like Prof. Benton’s about what should be done. In a blog post, he says that suggested “game-changers” seem to fall into five groups, no less:
- Rethinking current incentives
- Not wasting the crisis
- Breaking down barriers between fields
- Doing the obvious things, better
- Changing mindsets
It can all get a bit confusing, I have to say. So many ideas, options, trade-offs. Dr Haddad has multiple examples in each of those groups, and you and I could probably think of more. What’s to be done? How do we decide? Maybe, as the UNFSS process develops, some clear priorities will emerge. But perhaps we shouldn’t bank on that, nor do we need to. Perhaps, the thing to do… is to do everything. Certainly, we need to do something, and many, many little things might be easier to do, and better, than a few big things.
And to keep all our options open, to allow us to do everything we can think of, we’ll need all the crop diversity we can save, of course.
Brainfood: Corona, Restoration, Georeferencing, Bee decline, Mustard breeding, Banana seeds, Micronutrient decline, Potato micronutrients, GWAS, Trade, Deforestation alerts, Review method
- Rapid assessments of the impact of COVID-19 on the availability of quality seed to farmers: Advocating immediate practical, remedial and preventative action. Structural weaknesses ruthlessly exposed.
- Initial Investment in Diversity Is the Efficient Thing to Do for Resilient Forest Landscape Restoration. Spend the money on securing diverse seeds up front, you cheapskates. No word on what the effect of the pandemic.
- Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits. Right seeds, right species, right place, the right way. But save forests first.
- The impact of near-real-time deforestation alerts across the tropics. Getting alerts saves forests, especially in protected areas, but only in Africa.
- Integration of georeferenced and genetic data for the management of biodiversity in sheep genetic resources in Brazil. Travel 300 km for a genetically different sheep. I wonder if it’s the same for trees.
- Worldwide occurrence records suggest a global decline in bee species richness. 25% fewer species in GBIF in past 25 years. Yeah but there may be alternative explanations for that, as a bee taxonomist points out. Non-Twitter link available too.
- Investigating genetic relationship of Brassica juncea with B. nigra via virtual allopolyploidy and hexaploidy strategy. Wild relative could be used to synthesize some really cool mustards.
- Seed storage behavior of Musa balbisiana Colla, a wild progenitor of bananas and plantains – Implications for ex situ germplasm conservation. Orthodox, but difficult to regenerate.
- Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains: The context of reports of apparent historical declines. No evidence for systematic declines in micronutrient concentrations.
- A Study on the Biodiversity of Pigmented Andean Potatoes: Nutritional Profile and Phenolic Composition. Lots of diversity in micronutrients in traditional landraces. No word on temporal changes.
- Status and prospects of genome‐wide association studies in plants. Dissecting complex traits has never been easier, and is getting easier. It says here.
- A review of the interactions between biodiversity, agriculture, climate change, and international trade: research and policy priorities. Policy priorities? Increased recognition of international trade in biodiversity targets, goals, and policy; and increased communication of the impacts of food on biodiversity.
- The Impact of Diversified Farming Practices on Terrestrial Biodiversity Outcomes and Agricultural Yield Worldwide: A Systematic Review Protocol. Looking forward to this one.