Inter- and intraspecific diversity of food legumes among households and communities in Ethiopia

High-density DArTSeq SNP markers revealed wide genetic diversity and structured population in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) germplasm in Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION

Common bean is one of the widely consumed food security crop in Africa, Asia, and South America. Understanding genetic diversity and population structure is crucial for designing breeding strategies.

MATERIALS

Two hundred and eighty-nine germplasm were recently collected from different regions of Ethiopia and introduced from CIAT to estimate genetic diversity and population structure using 11,480 DArTSeq SNP markers.

RESULTS

The overall mean genetic diversity and polymorphic information content (PIC) were 0.38 and 0.30, respectively, suggested the presence of adequate genetic diversity among the genotypes. Among the geographical regions, landraces collected from Oromia showed the highest diversity (0.39) and PIC (0.30). The highest genetic distance was observed between genotypes collected from SNNPR and CIAT (0.49). In addition, genotypes from CIAT were genetically more related to improved varieties than the landraces which could be due to sharing of parents in the improvement process. The analysis of molecular variance revealed that the largest proportion of variation was due to within the population both in geographical region (63.67%) and breeding status (61.3%) based classification. Model-based structure analysis delineated the 289 common bean genotypes into six hypothetical ancestoral populations.

CONCLUSIONS

The genotypes were not clustered based on geographical regions and they were not the main drivers for the differentiation. This indicated that selection of the parental lines should be based on systematic assessment of the diversity rather than geographical distance. This article provides new insights into the genetic diversity and population structure of common bean for association studies, designing effective collection and conservation for efficient utilization for the improvement of the crop.

Genetic diversity and disease: The past, present, and future of an old idea

Why do infectious diseases erupt in some host populations and not others? This question has spawned independent fields of research in evolution, ecology, public health, agriculture, and conservation. In the search for environmental and genetic factors that predict variation in parasitism, one hypothesis stands out for its generality and longevity: genetically homogeneous host populations are more likely to experience severe parasitism than genetically diverse populations. In this perspective piece, I draw on overlapping ideas from evolutionary biology, agriculture, and conservation to capture the far-reaching implications of the link between genetic diversity and disease. I first summarize the development of this hypothesis and the results of experimental tests. Given the convincing support for the protective effect of genetic diversity, I then address the following questions: (1) Where has this idea been put to use, in a basic and applied sense, and how can we better use genetic diversity to limit disease spread? (2) What new hypotheses does the established disease-diversity relationship compel us to test? I conclude that monitoring, preserving, and augmenting genetic diversity is one of our most promising evolutionarily informed strategies for buffering wild, domesticated, and human populations against future outbreaks.

Developments and Prospects in Imperative Underexploited Vegetable Legumes Breeding: A Review

Vegetable legumes are an essential source of carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, along with health-promoting bioactive chemicals. The demand for the use of either fresh or processed vegetable legumes is continually expanding on account of the growing consumer awareness about their well-balanced diet. Therefore, sustaining optimum yields of vegetable legumes is extremely important. Here we seek to present d etails of prospects of underexploited vegetable legumes for food availability, accessibility, and improved livelihood utilization. So far research attention was mainly focused on pulse legumes' performance as compared to vegetable legumes. Wild and cultivated vegetable legumes vary morphologically across diverse habitats. This could make them less known, underutilized, and underexploited, and make them a promising potential nutritional source in developing nations where malnutrition still exists. Research efforts are required to promote underexploited vegetable legumes, for improving their use to feed the ever-increasing population in the future. In view of all the above points, here we have discussed underexploited vegetable legumes with tremendous potential; namely, vegetable pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), cluster bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba), winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), dolichos bean (Lablab purpureus), and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), thereby covering the progress related to various aspects such as pre-breeding, molecular markers, quantitative trait locus (QTLs), genomics, and genetic engineering. Overall, this review has summarized the information related to advancements in the breeding of vegetable legumes which will ultimately help in ensuring food and nutritional security in developing nations.

Dolichos Lablab-an underutilized crop with future potentials for food and nutrition security: a review

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) particularly goal number two in developing countries by 2030 is challenging. The State of Food Security and Nutrition (2019) in the World show prevalence of undernourishment which has practically remained unchanged for the last three years. This calls for sustainable synergies between food and nutrition in addressing the challenge. Exploring the potential of underutilized legumes such as Dolichos Lablab (Lablab purpureus) in improving food and nutrition security is of importance. Lablab is known among nutritious underutilized diversified legumes, which is drought tolerant relative to other legumes. However, it is less popular as human food. This review focuses on providing details on the nutritional potential of underutilized Lablab varieties for food availability, accessibility and satisfactorily utilization for improved livelihood. So far research attention has been focusing on good agronomic performance with less information on their nutritional quality and its contribution to the wellbeing of people. Both wild and cultivated Lablab accessions do differ morphologically and across diverse habitat environments. This may make them less known, untapped and underutilized despite its promising potential as a food resource in developing countries where malnutrition still exists. Efforts are needed to popularize high-quality nutritional accessions, enhancing their consumption and commercialization for feeding the ever-increasing population in the future.