Be prepared. I’m about to give in to the temptation to rant, something I’m sure a person as well-mannered and gentlemanly as Vavilov would easily have been able to resist.
In an earlier post, I cagily placed Vavilov’s location at El Djem, based on his mention of an amphitheatre. But he also talks about being “on the border of Tunisia towards the Sahara,” and El Djem is really only about halfway to the southern border. The obvious thing to do (which I’ve done before, with help) is to ask where Vavilov collected samples in Tunisia. But that is easier said than done.
First stop was my friend inside GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility,which exists to give access to geo-referenced data. And he knows Tunisia well. He agreed that El Djem would be his first choice, based on Vavilov’s text, with Sbeitla or Kasserine second, but they’re both much further north than El Djem. Then, with squillions of reccords to comb through, he found a weedy wild barley that had apparently been collected in Tunisia at 33.5 N, 9.2 E. No obvious link to Vavilov, and when another colleague found the original accession record at the Nordic Genebank there was a collecting date of 1968 and still no link to Vavilov.
I turned to the Vavilov Institute’s own database, which lists 194 accessions of wheat with Tunisia as both Donor Country and Country of Origin. [1] Data of entering in katalog is one of the fields in each accession’s passport data, but there is no way of narrowing the search to any specific years. And among the few accessions I did look at in detail were some for which Country of Origin was listed as Algeria, which seems a little perverse. There were some with a date of 1926, but no geographical information in the passport data, and nothing obvious from the names.
By this time, my pal at GBIF had returned to the fray, with a note that in Eurisco he had found some 126 accessions collected in Tunisia by the VIR. Eurisco is a database of databases that “receives data from the National inventories, and provides access to all ex situ PGR information in Europe”. An advanced search was called for, Country of Origin, Genus and Collecting Date. [2] Not a single specimen of Triticum collected in Tunisia between 1926 and 1927! Oh. I see. You have to put in the date and month of the year? Of course, how silly of me not to have thought of that. Eighty-eight Triticums collected in Tunisia between 1 January 1926 and 31 December 1927. Let’s narrow that down! No point. Zero were collected between 01 January 1926 and 31 December 1926 and zero were collected between 1 January 1927 and 31 December 1927. But 88 were collected between 1 January 1926 and 31 December 1927.
You can begin to see why we call this Genebank Database Hell.
All 88 are held by the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Plant Industry, so that’s nice. Not one has collecting site information, although they do all have a collecting date of 1926. Now what? I can download all the accession numbers in a file, but how would I use that?
What about SINGER, the CGIAR’s database of genebank databases. That has maps. And surely some of those VIR accessions have made their way to CGIAR genebannks. Er, no. Or, if they have, there’s no way to find out. I can find all the landrace wheats collected in Tunisia, but nothing in the information ICARDA supplies to SINGER tells me (easily) whether an accession came originally from the Vavilov institute.
This sounds like childish whining, I know, and I don’t want to denigrate the efforts of all who have tried to solve the problems, but my whining is actually heartfelt desperation born of unmet expectations. We have become so used to being able to find almost anything within seconds on the internet, and have heard all the talk about enabling access to genebank collections and information about them, that is is deeply frustrating when one simply comes up against a brick wall. Repeatedly.
Good intentions are there aplenty, but one honestly has to ask: how much more would it take first to ensure that all the data are available — and we’re not talking about some insignificant two-bit collecting mission here, we’re talking about the man who started this particular ball rolling — and secondly to get some genuine usability experts to help the well-intentioned to build web sites that work for everyone?
As for Vavilov, I’m going to leave him at El Djem, for want of better information.
Notes:
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Jeremy,
If you have the VIR Katalogue numbers (K numbers) then you can get the information, eventually. There is a K series for each crop. The best bet is to look at the herbarium voucher specimen at the Vavilov Institute in St. Petersburg (VIR) that were deposited for each collected sample and botanical variety within it. There should also be a card catalogue. The information exists. It happens to be on paper.
Considering that staff at the VIR are seriously underpaid by any standard, adequately funded projects and financial support for the institute may improve the information flow.
Of course, Dirk, you are absolutely right. The information is there, on paper. And if I could travel to St Petersburg, or find a VIR staff member who was not already overworked and underpaid, I would be able to find it.
My point is that with all the talk about making data accessible, and the considerable money that has already been devoted to these efforts, it should be easier than that. As I said, this is not to denigrate the efforts to date, just that I feel more could already have been achieved.
Hi Jeremy,
I’ve checked the European barley database for collector Vavilov. There is a nice dataset of locations for AFG; courtesy of USDA documentation efforts. Interested?
Hurrah for the Genebank Database Heaven!!
I still remember the days of dBaseIII and how proud we’re to be able to store large sets of data in an electronic manner but, most of all, to be able to retrieve meaningful information out of it, though through a somewhat complex and laborious reporting functionality. Long go those days and a long and arduous road has taken us to where we stand today: web services, global and regional information systems, crop specific databases, etc., etc., maintaining and making available information in quantity and quality never seen before. And it doesn’t stop here …since there’s still so much to achieve, in spite of the enormous accomplishments made so far!! So, we still have so much to expect and gain from the efforts of the so often forgotten thousands of people that every day buckle down over keyboards to make the miracle of PGR information a reality. THANKS!! I do acknowledge, commend and support your efforts.
Last but not least!! Should we blame Vavilov for, so inconsiderately, set off to his collecting missions without a GPS and laptop leaving us now whining because we don’t manage, to the distance of a click, figure out the exact place where he collected a sample 100 years ago?