Poverty alleviation and environmental restoration using the clean development mechanism: A case study from Humbo, Ethiopia.

Poverty, hunger and demand for agricultural land have driven local communities to overexploit forest resources throughout Ethiopia. Forests surrounding the township of Humbo were largely destroyed by the late 1960s. In 2004, World Vision Australia and World Vision Ethiopia identified forestry-based carbon sequestration as a potential means to stimulate community development while engaging in environmental restoration. After two years of consultation, planning and negotiations, the Humbo Community-based Natural Regeneration Project began implementation--the Ethiopian organization's first carbon sequestration initiative. The Humbo Project assists communities affected by environmental degradation including loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and flooding with an opportunity to benefit from carbon markets while reducing poverty and restoring the local agroecosystem. Involving the regeneration of 2,728 ha of degraded native forests, it brings social, economic and ecological benefits--facilitating adaptation to a changing climate and generating temporary certified emissions reductions (tCERs) under the Clean Development Mechanism. A key feature of the project has been facilitating communities to embrace new techniques and take responsibility for large-scale environmental change, most importantly involving Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). This technique is low-cost, replicable, and provides direct benefits within a short time. Communities were able to harvest fodder and firewood within a year of project initiation and wild fruits and other non-timber forest products within three years. Farmers are using agroforestry for both environmental restoration and income generation. Establishment of user rights and local cooperatives has generated community ownership and enthusiasm for this project--empowering the community to more sustainably manage their communal lands.

QTL mapping of agronomic traits in tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc) Trotter].

BACKGROUND: Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] is the major cereal crop in Ethiopia. Tef is an allotetraploid with a base chromosome number of 10 (2n = 4x = 40) and a genome size of 730 Mbp. The goal of this study was to identify agronomically important quantitative trait loci (QTL) using recombinant inbred lines (RIL) derived from an inter-specific cross between E. tef and E. pilosa (30-5). RESULTS: Twenty-two yield-related and morphological traits were assessed across eight different locations in Ethiopia during the growing seasons of 1999 and 2000. Using composite interval mapping and a linkage map incorporating 192 loci, 99 QTLs were identified on 15 of the 21 linkage groups for 19 traits. Twelve QTLs on nine linkage groups were identified for grain yield. Clusters of more than five QTLs for various traits were identified on seven linkage groups. The largest cluster (10 QTLs) was identified on linkage group 8; eight of these QTLs were for yield or yield components, suggesting linkage or pleotrophic effects of loci. There were 15 two-way interactions of loci to detect potential epistasis identified and 75% of the interactions were derived from yield and shoot biomass. Thirty-one percent of the QTLs were observed in multiple environments; two yield QTLs were consistent across all agro-ecology zones. For 29.3% of the QTLs, the alleles from E. pilosa (30-5) had a beneficial effect. CONCLUSION: The extensive QTL data generated for tef in this study will provide a basis for initiating molecular breeding to improve agronomic traits in this staple food crop for the people of Ethiopia.

Interrelationship and path coefficient analysis of yield components in F4 progenies of tef (Eragrostis tef).

This experiment was conducted at Debre Zeit and Akaki during 2004-2005 cropping season on F2-derived F4 bulk families of three crosses, viz, DZ-01-974 x DZ-01-2786, DZ-01-974 x DZ-Cr-37 and Alba x Kaye Murri. To estimate the correlations and path coefficients between yield and yield components, 63 F4 families were taken randomly from each of the three crosses. The 189 F4 families, five parents and two checks were space planted following in 14 x 14 simple lattice design. Study of associations among traits indicated that yield was positively associated with shoot biomass, harvest index, lodging index and panicle kernel weight at phenotypic level at Debre Zeit. At Akaki, yield had significant positive correlation with shoot biomass, harvest index, plant height, panicle length and panicle weight. At genotypic level, grain yield per plot exhibited positive association with harvest index, shoot biomass, lodging index and panicle kernel weight at Debre Zeit. By contrast, days to heading, days to maturity, plant height and panicle length showed negative association with yield. At Akaki, kernel yield per plot was positively correlated at genotypic level with all the traits considered where lodging index had the highest correlation followed by shoot biomass, panicle kernel weight and harvest index. Path coefficient analysis at both phenotypic and genotypic levels for both the locations suggested those shoot biomass and harvest indexes are the two important yield determining traits. These two traits might be useful in indirect selection for yield improvement in the material generated from the three crosses under consideration.

Expressed sequence tag analysis in tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc) Trotter).

Tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) is the most important cereal crop in Ethiopia; however, there is very little DNA sequence information available for this species. Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were generated from 4 cDNA libraries: seedling leaf, seedling root, and inflorescence of E. tef and seedling leaf of Eragrostis pilosa, a wild relative of E. tef. Clustering of 3603 sequences produced 530 clusters and 1890 singletons, resulting in 2420 tef unigenes. Approximately 3/4 of tef unigenes matched protein or nucleotide sequences in public databases. Annotation of unigenes associated 68% of the putative tef genes with gene ontology categories. Identification of the translated unigenes for conserved protein domains revealed 389 protein family domains (Pfam), the most frequent of which was protein kinase. A total of 170 ESTs containing simple sequence repeats (EST-SSRs) were identified and 80 EST-SSR markers were developed. In addition, 19 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and (or) insertion-deletion (indel) and 34 intron fragment length polymorphism (IFLP) markers were developed. The EST database and molecular markers generated in this study will be valuable resources for further tef genetic research.

A genetic linkage map for tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter].

Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] is the major cereal crop in Ethiopia. Tef is an allotetraploid with a base chromosome number of 10 (2n = 4x = 40) and a genome size of 730 Mbp. Ninety-four F(9) recombinant inbred lines (RIL) derived from the interspecific cross, Eragrostis tef cv. Kaye Murri x Eragrostis pilosa (accession 30-5), were mapped using restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP), simple sequence repeats derived from expressed sequence tags (EST-SSR), single nucleotide polymorphism/insertion and deletion (SNP/INDEL), intron fragment length polymorphism (IFLP) and inter-simple sequence repeat amplification (ISSR). A total of 156 loci from 121 markers was grouped into 21 linkage groups at LOD 4, and the map covered 2,081.5 cM with a mean density of 12.3 cM per locus. Three putative homoeologous groups were identified based on multi-locus markers. Sixteen percent of the loci deviated from normal segregation with a predominance of E. tef alleles, and a majority of the distorted loci were clustered on three linkage groups. This map will be useful for further genetic studies in tef including mapping of loci controlling quantitative traits (QTL), and comparative analysis with other cereal crops.

Variation and inter-relationships of quantitative traits in tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) germplasm from western and southern Ethiopia.

Three thousand tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) lines representing 60 germplasm populations from western and southern Ethiopia were sown on pellic Vertisols at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center during the 1999/2000 main season. The objectives were to assess the variation with respect to regions and altitude zones of origin and to study the inter-relationships of 17 pheno-morphic and agronomic traits. The populations showed significant (p < or = 0.05) regional variation in 10 (59%) of the quantitative traits, but clinal variation among altitude zones was significant (p < or = 0.05) only for six (35%) of the traits. On the other hand, the populations revealed consistent variation (p < or = 0.05) within both regions and altitude zones in all the traits evaluated. Likewise, the variation among lines within populations of both regions and altitude zones was significant (p < or = 0.05) in most of the traits. The number of characters showing substantial correlation depicted regional and clinal variation mainly depending on the number of populations. Based on the mean of the populations, grain yield panicle and shoot phytomass plant showed negative correlation with harvest index, and positive correlation with most of the remaining traits. Individual plant grain yield was positively correlated with all the other traits except harvest index, days to maturity, grain filling period and number of primary panicle branches. Overall, the tef germplasm populations showed substantial phenotypic variation which can be utilized in the genetic improvement of the crop.

Inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analysis of genetic diversity in tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter].

The DNA polymorphism among 92 selected tef genotypes belonging to eight origin groups was assessed using eight inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers. The objectives were to examine the possibility of using ISSR markers for unravelling genetic diversity in tef, and to assess the extent and pattern of genetic diversity in the test germplasm with respect to origin groups. The eight primers were able to separate or distinguish all of the 92 tef genotypes based on a total of 110 polymorphic bands among the test lines. The Jaccard similarity coefficient among the test genotypes ranged from 0.26 to 0.86, and at about 60 % similarity level the clustering of this matrix using the unweighted pair-group method based on arithmetic average (UPGMA) resulted in the formation of six major clusters of 2 to 37 lines with further eight lines remaining ungrouped. The standardized Nei genetic distance among the eight groups of origin ranged between 0.03 and 0.32. The UPGMA clustering using the standardized genetic distance matrix resulted in the identification of three clusters of the eight groups of origin with bootstrap values ranging from 56 to 97. The overall mean Shannon Weaver diversity index of the test lines was 0.73, indicating better resolution of genetic diversity in tef with ISSR markers than with phenotypic (morphological) traits used in previous studies. This can be attributed mainly to the larger number of loci generated for evaluation with ISSR analysis as compared to the few number of phenotypic traits amenable for assessment and which are further greatly affected by environment and genotype x environment interaction. Analysis of variance of mean Shannon Weaver diversity indices revealed substantial (P < or = 0.05) variation in the level of diversity among the eight groups of origin. In conclusion, our results indicate that ISSR can be useful as DNA-based molecular markers for studying genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships, DNA fingerprinting for the identification of varieties or cultivars, and also for genome mapping in tef.

Multivariate analysis of diversity of tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) germplasm from western and southern Ethiopia.

Sixty tef germplasm populations consisting of 3,000 panicle-derived lines from six western and southern regions of Ethiopia were evaluated for 17 pheno-morphic and agronomic traits on pellic Vertisols at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center during the 1999 main season. The objectives were to study the extent and pattern of variation of the germplasm with respect to regions and altitude zones, to classify the populations into relatively homogenous groups and to identify the major traits contributing to the overall diversity of the populations. At 75 % similarity level, the 60 populations aggregated into nine complexes of two to 10, with 12 populations remaining un-grouped. Five principal components (PC) extracted about 81 % of the gross variance among the populations. About 40 % of the variance accounted for by the first PC alone resulted largely from variations in diameters of the two basal culm internodes, grain yield and number of spikelets/panicle, shoot phytomass and grain yield/plant, and number of culm internodes. The entire regional as well as the clinal (altitude zone) variation was explained by five and two PCs, respectively. The discriminant analyses depicted about 77 % correct grouping of the 47 populations into nine clusters and about 62 % and 68 % correct origin-based classification of the germplasm in terms of altitude zones and regions, respectively. In general, the study demonstrated the existence of regional and clinal (altitude zone) variation patterns in the tef germplasm populations. The broad trait variation in the germplasm implies ample opportunities for genetic improvement of tef through selection and hybridization.