In FY 2018 year Dr Matthews joined counterparts in Bangladesh, China and Vietnam for expeditions to Sylhet, Yunnan, and Hue vicinity. He was also able to carry out a brief pilot survey of wild taro populations in the Chao Praya delta area of Thailand, in the vicinity of Bangkok city. RA Etsuko Tabuchi and Dr Matthews visited the Ethnobotany Laboratory of Dr Chunlin Long, at Minzu University, and prepared DNA samples for analysis with the help of his students. The sequences obtained for three chloroplast loci (ACE16, ACE26, ACE39) and one nuclear genome locus (PhyC) are now being analysed.

A combined field report for the field surveys in Bangladesh and Thailand is planned (these surveys were supported by a JSPS grant to Tsukuba University in collaboration with Dr K. Watanabe).

Photo: Wild taro on the river bank, Hue city, Vietnam (PJ Matthews and Nguyen Van Dzu)

In the period April 2017 to March 2018, PJM was able to visit China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam for fieldwork and research discussions.

The main fieldwork areas were Mekong and Red River deltas, Vietnam, and a transect from Guilin to Guangzhou along a tributary of the Pearl River, China.

Wild taro populations were common in each of these river areas, but in each case there were important differences in ecology and uses. From Guilin to Guangzhou, we may have crossed a northern limit for the natural spread of taro, as it is in this region that the winter frost line marks the boundary between tropical and temperate vegetation zones.

Samples collected will be analysed in collaboration with Dr Nguyen Van Dzu (Department of Ethnobotany, Institute for Ecology and Biological Resources, Hanoi) and Dr Chunlin Long (Ethnobotany Laboratory, Minzu University, Beijing).

Fieldwork takes many forms... sometimes it is what we see while on holiday, while visiting another country for a meeting, or while walking near our own home, wherever that may be.  

And sometimes - if we are lucky - it is actual funded fieldwork.

The last kind is best for focused observation in a particular area and time, for an ethnographic, ecological, or other field science study. The other kinds are nevertheless useful, for serendipitous discovery, for thinking, and for discussion.

In this project blog, we can report on all kinds of fieldwork, in relation to the subject of taro, and wild taro especially. Recently (2016-2018), I have travelled in China, India, and Vietnam.

I will say more about these trips as time permits.

Updated: 26th June 2020.

Our project requires the integration of literature across many disciplines.

One way to do this efficiently may be to make the process of literature research public, using the topic focus forums of the Research Cooperative.

Here is my first example. I will add others as time permits:

TOPIC: Gesonula, the taro grasshopper

TOPIC: International Society for Tropical Root Crops (ISTRC ). After many years of limited availability, all the past conference volumes are now available for free, online, at the Society website. This a great trove of work on many root crops, including taro.

See: http://www.istrc.org/symposia/

Photo: servings of small taro "child corms" ( ko-imo , two per dish) in the lunchroom of the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan.

The Economic Aroids Workshop will be an 'Associated Meeting' of the XIX International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Shenzen  ( see listing here, ST-24 )

Convenors:

Peter J. Matthews (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka)

Chunlin Long ( Minzu University of China, Beijing; and Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming)

Date: 24 July, 2017

Time: 11:00 am -13:00 pm

Venue: main conference center.

Abstract

The convenors will present a brief overview of economic aroids (Fam. Araceae) and research on these plants, and then introduce the "Wild Taro Research Project" . We will invite cross-disciplinary collaboration for an exploration of the natural and cultural history of taro ( Colocasia esculenta ), other economic aroids, and their wild relatives.

As a 'roundtable' workshop, all participants will be invited to consider and discuss ways in which historical, ethnobotanical, ecological, taxonomic, and genetic approaches can be integrated in order to (i) learn about crop history, (ii) identify priorities for crop development, and (iii) protect wild crop relatives and their habitats.

Note: Anyone attending IBC and working with Araceae is herewith invited to give a short presentation at this workshop. Please contact: Peter Matthews (researchcooperative at gmail dot com).

To link to the present announcement, please use the URL

https://researchcooperative.org/r/IBCaroids

or copy this text link:

Economic Aroids Workshop, IBC 2017

PJM (Dr Matthews) will attend IBC 2017 in July, and will present a poster for Session T6-10 Capturing biodiversity for food security (organizer: Robert Henry, University of Queensland, Australia).

The poster title will be:  Perception gaps that may explain the status of taro as an “orphan crop”, despite global distribution and value as a starchy root crop and green vegetable.

The date and time for this session are 13:30-15:30 pm, July 28 (Friday), and the talk titles are:

Taro, Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott, is a root crop and leaf vegetable found in tropical to temperate regions of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

Throughout lowland Southeast Asia, wild populations of C. esculenta grow along roadsides, ditches and canals, and on the banks of ponds, streams, and rivers (Fig. 1).

  Figure 1  In N. Vietnam, C. menglaensis Yin, Li, & Xu (left), and C. lihengiae Long & Liu (centre) carry the same chloroplast genome as wild C. esculenta in a natural lowland swamp (right) but have species-specific, nuclear genome ITS sequences (Matthews, Ahmed & Nguyen, 2016 “Sympatry of Colocasia esculenta (taro) and its wild relatives in Southeast Asia” Paper presented at 8th World Archaeology Congress, Kyoto, 28. Aug.-2. Sept. 2016).

These rarely studied wild populations are widely used as free sources of food for local people and fodder for local pigs. They actively invade the open habitats created by human activities, spreading vegetatively and by seed, and may represent the most abundant wild vegetable source in Southeast Asia.

To test old and new domestication models (Fig. 2), we will:

(i) map the distribution of wild populations of C. esculenta ,

(ii) record their morphological diversity

(iii) collect leaf tissue samples for DNA analysis, and

(iv) compare the wild populations with cultivated C. esculenta and wild Colocasia species using DNA tests for past hybridization.

To conduct the research, convene related meetings, and prepare publications, we will establish an international “ Wild Taro Working Group ” composed of local counterparts and others with relevant expertise and interests.