Darwinian Agriculture

Corrections, commentary, and links pertaining to:

Related talks

• Where should agroecologists seek "Nature's wisdom?" (ESA 2002)
• What crop improvement options has natural selection missed? (UCD lecture)

Commentary on Darwinian Agriculture from other web sites

New Directions for Agriculture in Reducing Poverty
"even with biotechnology, there is only so much that research can accomplish... There are limits, which are nicely spelled out in a recent article by R. Ford
Denison, et al. titled "Darwinian Agriculture; When Can Humans Find Solutions Beyond the Reach of Natural Selection?" in the QUARTERLY
REVIEW OF BIOLOGY, June 2003.  And we cannot take current yield levels for granted: an increasing amount of maintenance research will be needed
to hold on to current levels, let alone productivity-increasing research to meet the needs of an expanding, wealthier, and  increasingly
urbanized population."  -- Dana Dalrymple

General comments and papers we missed

• Applied Evolution
• "there seems to be little hope of improving the efficiency of the photosynthetic process by selection or breeding" Watson (1958) Ann. Bot. 22:37
• 23 June 2003 Ulrich Mueller points out that ants have been farming for 40 million years and may have something to teach us about sustainability.  See for example PNAS 99:15247.
• 16 June 2003 RFD.  Johnson and Mayeux (J. Range Mgt. 45:322) have questioned the "balance of nature" as it applies to rangeland.  They point out that creosotebush expanded so quickly it makes one doubt that the previous community was self-maintaining.  (Similar examples of rapid invasions have been noted at least since Origin of Species, Chapter 3.)  They also point out that individual creosotebush plants live long enough that the "first generation" may still be dominant, limiting opportunities for coevolution of creosotebush with other species.
• 1 June 2003 RFD.  Another interesting and relevant paper we missed is "Artificial ecosystem selection" (PNAS 97:9110).  The authors seem to show that artificial selection of soil microbial communities can be effective, even though the community presumably contains a very large number of individuals.  This result appears to contrast with our Table 2, which suggests that group selection will only work when each group contains a small number of individuals.   The progress with selection was quite erratic, however.  All plants died in "generation" 15, whether selection was for high or low plant biomass.  Apparently they had some unselected controls, but these weren't included in the graphs.  Independent replication of this work might be worthwhile.  The authors also state that "Natural ecosystem selection is unlikely to occur..." at large scales, such as an entire forest.  This conclusion is consistent with our Hypothesis 2.
•  1 June 2003 RFD.  Although increasing seed yield was not necessarily a goal of the "male sterile" trait (our Table 1), it could be a side effect.  In maize, shading of leaves by male flowers may reduce photosynthesis (Crop Sci. 7:37).  This is in addition to the direct C and N costs of producing male flowers and pollen.

Biomimetics and human-directed evolution

• Reusable super-stick tape inspired by gecko feet
• Evolving E. coli with an altered genetic code, allowing incorporation of an unnatural amino acid (PNAS 99:11020)
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