Natural Disasters

Floods Stall Ivory Coast Cocoa Harvest

Heavy rains in Ivory Coast’s cocoa-growing areas are slowing the harvesting and sales of beans and farmers say they’re worried about black-pod disease rotting their crops.

Publication Date: 
03/07/2017
Bloomberg
Tags:
Natural Disasters, Floods, Cocoa, Agriculture, Cote D' Ivoire, Plant Diseases, Crop Pests, Africa
Forests

Botanists alarm over pests and diseases ravaging African forests

Virulent pests and diseases that are ravaging Africa’s forests with profound intensity pose new threats to their survival, experts said at a forum in Entebbe, Uganda on Wednesday.

Publication Date: 
26/05/2017
Coast Week (Kenya)
Tags:
Forests, Africa, Plant Diseases, Climate Change, Flora, Trees
Biodiversity

State of the World’s Plants 2017

The spread of pests and pathogens that damage plant life could cost global agriculture $540 billion a year, according to this report released by the Royal Botanic Gardens in London. An increase in international trade and travel had left flora facing rising threats from invasive pests and pathogens, and called for greater biosecurity measures.

Publication Date: 
18/05/2017
Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Tags:
Flora, Endangered Species, Medicinal Plants, Land Use, Agriculture, Grazing Lands, Invasive Alien Species, Climate Change, Climate Impacts, India, Madagascar, Trade, Developing Countries, Plant Diseases, Africa, Asia, Forest Fires
Agriculture

Rapid transcriptional plasticity of duplicated gene clusters enables a clonally reproducing aphid to colonise diverse plant species

The prevailing paradigm of host-parasite evolution is that arms races lead to increasing specialisation via genetic adaptation. Insect herbivores are no exception and the majority have evolved to colonise a small number of closely related host species. Remarkably, the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae, colonises plant species across 40 families and single M. persicae clonal lineages can colonise distantly related plants. This remarkable ability makes M. persicae a highly destructive pest of many important crop species.

Publication Date: 
13/02/2017
Thomas C. Mathers, Yazhou Chen, Gemy Kaithako