Democratic directionality for transformative food systems research

Effective interfaces of knowledge and policy are critical for food system transformation. Here, an expert group assembled to explore research needs towards a safe and just food system put forward principles to guide relations between society, science, knowledge, policy and politics

AdaptMap: exploring goat diversity and adaptation

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Heterosis in the second and third generation affects litter size in a crossbreed mink (Neovison vison) population

Litter sizes in a cross between Brown and Black mink color types were observed through six generations. Litter size was significantly affected by yearly environmental variations. After adjusting for year effects, we found significant increases in litter size in the second and third generations (F2 and F3) after crossing. Thereafter, in the following generations, litter size dropped to a level comparable to the mean litter size of the midparent. Increased litter size in F2 compared to F1 indicated that maternal effects influenced litter size more than non-maternal effects. The heterosis was mainly caused by an increase in litter size compared to the Black parental line. This indicates that the Black line was affected by inbreeding depression prior to crossing. We also found that two-year old F1 females had significantly more offspring compared to one-year old F1 females.</jats:p

Democratic directionality for transformative food systems research

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AdaptMap: Exploring goat diversity and adaptation

Goats are bred worldwide and present in a wide variety of production environments. Local breeds, which are well adapted to a range of agro-ecological conditions, contribute to ensuring the sustainability of livestock farming in marginal and difficult areas in both developed and developing countries. Compared to other livestock species, goats have been domesticated in a single region and subject to a limited amount of hybridization between breeds, thus they represent one of the best species for the study of genetic diversity and adaptation. The International Goat Genome Consortium (IGGC, http://www.goatgenome.org) was created in 2012 with the general goal of increasing the range of genomic tools and publicly available information for the goat. In 2013, the 50 K goat single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel was developed (http://www.goatgenome.org; [3]) by combining whole-genome sequencing and reduced representation libraries from eight breeds/populations from Europe and Asia through the cooperation of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (Inra) in France, Utrecht University in The Netherlands, the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) in Malaysia, and DNA Landmarks in Canada. Several large projects took advantage of this newly-developed SNP panel to genotype many goat populations across the world with a range of objectives and hypotheses: genome-wide association analyses across a spectrum of research and production traits, germplasm characterization and diversity studies, and genetic prediction for selection in commercial populations. The AdaptMap project started as a voluntary consortium in 2014, with the aim of improving coordination among these otherwise independent projects for genotyping, resequencing and phenotyping of goat breeds. AdaptMap was promoted by the International Goat Genome Consortium (IGGC), the African Goat Improvement Network (AGIN), which is a group resulting from the USAID Feed the Future (FtF), the USDA Livestock Improvement Project, the European Union sponsored, 3SR\u2014Sustainable Solutions for Small ruminants and NEXTGEN projects