
Kauê De SousaInland Norway University of Applied Sciences
Kauê De Sousa
PhD Applied Ecology and Biotechnology
About
53
Publications
23,426
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Introduction
Agricultural Scientist with interest in biodiversity, climate adaptation and food systems https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7571-7845
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
University of Inland Norway
Position
- Professor (Associate)
May 2016 - November 2022
January 2013 - December 2014
Education
April 2018 - April 2021
January 2013 - December 2014
February 2007 - December 2011
Publications
Publications (53)
Crop adaptation to climate change requires accelerated crop variety introduction accompanied by recommendations to help farmers match the best variety with their field contexts. Existing approaches to generate these recommendations lack scalability and predictivity in marginal production environments. We tested if crowdsourced citizen science can a...
Crop breeding must embrace the broad diversity of smallholder agricultural systems to ensure food security to the hundreds of millions of people living in challenging production environments. This need can be addressed by combining genomics, farmers’ knowledge, and environmental analysis into a data-driven decentralized approach (3D-breeding). We t...
This Initiative aims to maximize CGIAR and partners' returns on investment in breeding, seed systems and other Initiatives based on reliable and timely market intelligence that enables stronger demand orientation and strengthens co-ownership and co-implementation by CGIAR and partners. Abstract The current seed product market segmentation by the Co...
This perspective describes the opportunities and challenges of data-driven approaches for crop diversity management (genebanks and breeding) in the context of agricultural research for sustainable development in the Global South. Data-driven approaches build on larger volumes of data and flexible analyses that link different datasets across domains...
Matching crop varieties to their target use context and user preferences is a challenge faced by many plant breeding programs serving smallholder agriculture. Numerous participatory approaches proposed by CGIAR and other research teams over the last four decades have attempted to capture farmers' priorities/preferences and crop variety field perfor...
This brief explores Tanzanian farmers' requirements for sorghum seed products as input for discussions by CGIAR and NARES on seed product market segmentation and the design of target product profiles (TPPs). We applied a novel approach to identify the requirements-video-based product concept testing (VPCT). Through multiple engagements with breeder...
CONTEXT: Opportunity crops, also known as neglected and underutilized species (NUS), offer benefits to diversify food systems with nutritious and climate-resilient foods. A major limitation to incorporate these crops in farming systems is the lack of improved varieties impedes farmers accessing quality planting material of these crops.
OBJECTIVES:...
The triadic comparison of technology options (tricot) approach to participatory varietal selection has been demonstrated to scale out the on‐farm testing of elite candidate crop varieties. In this study, we evaluated elite clones of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) using the tricot approach. We sought to (1) synthesize on‐farm trial data from two...
Participatory approaches for crop variety testing can help breeding teams to incorporate traditional knowledge and consider site-specific sociocultural complexities. However, traditional participatory approaches have drawbacks and are seldom streamlined or scaled. Decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science addresses some of these ch...
The triadic comparison of technologies (tricot) method is a participatory, citizen science method for evaluating a number of technologies (e.g. varieties) in groups of three, with analysis based on ranking. The tricot method is supported by the ClimMob platform (ClimMob.net) which enables the design of on-farm experiments, collection of data (using...
Experimental citizen science offers new ways to organize on-farm testing of crop varieties and other agronomic options. Its implementation at scale requires software that streamlines the process of experimental design, data collection and analysis, so that different organizations can support trials. This article considers ClimMob software developed...
Synthesis of crop trial data can generate insights that are not available from the analysis of individual studies, but such synthesis is often constrained by the heterogeneity of data among studies. Rank‐based data synthesis provides the flexibility to combine data of heterogeneous types and from different sources. We demonstrate the application of...
BACKGROUND
Nigeria and Cameroon are multi‐ethnic countries with diverse preferences for food characteristics. The present study aimed to inform cassava breeders on consumer‐prioritized eba quality traits. Consumer testing was carried out using the triadic comparison of technologies (tricot). Diverse consumers in villages, towns and cities evaluated...
Previous research indicates that some important cocoa cultivated areas in West Africa will become unsuitable for growing cocoa in the next decades. However, it is not clear if this change will be mirrored by the shade tree species that could be used in cocoa-based agroforestry systems (C-AFS). We characterized current and future patterns of habitat...
To derive insights from data, researchers working on agricultural experiments need appropriate data management and analysis tools. To ensure that workflows are reproducible and can be applied on a routine basis, programmatic tools are needed. Such tools are increasingly necessary for rank-based data, a type of data that is generated in on-farm expe...
In the smallholder, low-input farming systems widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, farmers select and propagate crop varieties based on their traditional knowledge and experience. A data-driven integration of their knowledge into breeding pipelines may support the sustainable intensification of local farming. Here, we combine genomics with participato...
BACKGROUND: Gari and eba, forms of cassava semolina, are mainly consumed in Nigeria and other West African countries. This study aimed to define the critical quality traits of gari and eba, to measure their heritability, to define medium and high throughput instrumental methods for use by breeders, and to link the traits with consumer preferences....
BACKGROUND
Gari and eba, forms of cassava semolina, are mainly consumed in Nigeria and other West African countries. This study aimed to define the critical quality traits of gari and eba, to measure their heritability, to define medium and high throughput instrumental methods for use by breeders, and to link the traits with consumer preferences. T...
Agrometeorological data is important in agricultural research, especially in agronomy and crop science, for investigating genotype by environment interactions. The AgERA5 dataset from the Copernicus Climate Data Store provides free and public access to global gridded daily agrometeorological data, from 1979 to present, with ready to use variables t...
Location‐specific information is required to support decision making in crop variety management, especially under increasingly challenging climate conditions. Data synthesis can aggregate data from individual trials to produce information that supports decision making in plant breeding programs, extension services, and of farmers. Data from on‐farm...
Previous research indicates that some important cocoa cultivated areas in West Africa will become unsuitable for growing cocoa in the next decades. However, it is not clear if this change will be mirrored by the shade tree species that could be used in cocoa-based agroforestry systems (C-AFS). We characterized current and future patterns of habitat...
In smallholder farming systems, traditional farmer varieties of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) support the livelihoods of millions of growers and consumers. NUS combine cultural and agronomic value with local adaptation, and transdisciplinary methods are needed to fully evaluate their breeding potential. Here, we assembled and characteri...
Climate change is altering suitable areas of crop species worldwide, with cascading effects on people reliant upon those crop species as food sources and for income generation. Macadamia is one of Malawi’s most important and profitable crop species; however, climate change threatens its production. Thus, this study’s objective is to quantitatively...
Climate change is altering suitable areas of crop species worldwide, with cascading effects on people and animals reliant upon those crop species as food sources. Macadamia is one of Malawi's most important and profitable crop species. Here, we used an ensemble model approach to determine the current distribution of macadamia producing areas across...
Crowdsourced citizen science is an emerging approach in plant sciences. The triadic comparison of technologies (tricot) approach has been successfully utilized by demand-led breeding programmes to identify varieties for dissemination suited to specific geographic and climatic regions. An important feature of this approach is the independent way in...
Tricot (triadic comparisons of technologies) is a citizen science approach for testing technology options in their use environments, which is being applied to on-farm testing of crop varieties. Over the last years, important progress has been made on the tricot methodology of which an overview is given. Trial dimensions depend on several factors bu...
Triadic comparison of technology options (tricot) is a research methodology that helps farmers to identify the most suitable technologies for the local conditions of their farm. Tricot (read: ‘try-cot’) engages farmers as ‘farmer researchers’ in the testing or validation of new crop varieties and other promising technologies. Tricot is supported by...
Data and R code used in the paper
de Sousa, K., & Solberg, S. Ø. (2020). Conservation Gaps in Traditional Vegetables Native to Europe and Fennoscandia. Agriculture, 10(8), 340. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10080340
Vegetables are rich in vitamins and other micronutrients and are important crops for healthy diets and diversification of the food system, and many traditional (also termed underutilized or indigenous) species may play a role. The current study analyzed 35 vegetables with a European region of diversity with the effort to map the conservation status...
The chirps package provides functionalities for reproducible analysis in R (R Core Team, 2020) using the CHIRPS (Funk et al., 2015) data. CHIRPS is daily precipitation data set developed by the Climate Hazards Group (Funk et al., 2015) for high resolution precipitation gridded data. Spanning 50 • S to 50 • N (and all longitudes) and ranging from 19...
Supports analysis of trends in climate change, ecological and crop modelling. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=climatrends
API client for 'ClimMob', an open source software for crowdsourcing citizen science in agriculture under the 'tricot' method <https://climmob.net/climmob3/>. Developed by van Etten et al. (2019) <doi:10.1017/S0014479716000739>, it turns the research paradigm on its head; instead of a few researchers designing complicated trials to compare several t...
Climate change threatens coffee production and the livelihoods of thousands of families in Mesoamerica that depend on it. Replacing coffee with cocoa and integrating trees in combined agroforestry systems to ameliorate abiotic stress are among the proposed alternatives to overcome this challenge. These two alternatives do not consider the vulnerabi...
Harvard Dataverse <https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/0O1GW1>. We performed an ensemble method for Species Distribution Modelling (SDM) using a subset of 17 SDM algorithms. The area cover the current Mesoamerica, comprised by Panama to central Mexico (coordinates-101 to-77 W, 7 to 22 N). All analyses were done in R (version 3.3.3) using a consensus method...
Under accelerated climatic and socioeconomic change, farmers need quick solutions, including access to a range of crop seeds. Seeds for Needs provides a simple, cost-efficient way for a diversity of farmers to (i) have access to a broad range of crop diversity (ii) characterize it using molecular, morphological and farmer evaluation data, (iii) eva...
Harvard Dataverse <https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/4ICF6W>. Farmers were invited to collaborate as citizen science volunteers in the crowdsourcing approach "tricot" (triadic comparison of technologies). We organized tricot trials, testing 10 common bean varieties (Phaseolus vulgaris) in Nicaragua during five growing seasons, 62 durum wheat (Triticum du...
La región de Centroamérica cubre una superficie de 524.000 km2, de los cuales 181.000
km2 (el 35%) corresponden a lo que se denomina “Corredor Seco Centroamericano”. En la región viven aproximadamente 26 millones de personas, más de la mitad de ellas en el área rural, que se caracteriza por un alto índice de pobreza y una agricultura de subsistenci...
For the full information on this publication, please look at < http://www.worldagroforestry.org/atlas-central-america >. This atlas provides habitat suitability maps for 54 species that are widely used in Central America for shade in coffee or cocoa agroforestry systems. The 54 species represent 24 fruit species, 24 timber species and 6 species use...
Silvopastoral systems—the management of trees within pastures from natural regeneration or planting—are a strategy to promote sustainable livestock systems and ecosystems services. Timber is one of the products from these systems with potential to increase family revenues. The management of natural regeneration and population dynamics of trees is a...
Para acceder a todos los productos de esta publicación vea URL < http://www.worldagroforestry.org/atlas-central-america >. Las prácticas agroforestales como los sistemas silvopastoriles,café y cacao bajo sombra, cercas vivas, barreras rompevientos y barbechos son una de las estrategias clave para el desarrollo de una agricultura adaptada al clima e...
This is a Chapter from the handbook "Manejo de sementes para o cultivo de espécies florestais da Amazônia" (in Portuguese) which aims to provide technical information regarding the production, management and conservation of 50 focal tree species in Central Amazon. In this Chapter we present the potential uses of these 50 species.
The importance of tropical timber is increasing worldwide. However, the timber supply of tropical forests has been greatly impacted by growing deforestation associated with complex and restrictive timber harvest laws. In Central America, as well as in other developing regions, reforestation programs have often fallen short of expectations. In these...
Seed conditioning is a technique that can increase the vigor and speed of the germination process (Mendonça et al., 2005), which consists in pre-soaking the seeds in sufficient quantity to activate the metabolism, but insufficient to allow the protrusion of the primary root (Bradford, 1986). Activation of metabolism allows the recovery of damage ac...
For Bertholletia excelsa H.B.K. (Brazil nut) the optimal temperature for seed germination is not yet known. This species occurs in the Amazon region in terra firme forests. The objective of this work was to determine the optimum temperature for the evaluation of seed quality in the laboratory in order to provide subsidies for the elaboration of the...
Questions
Question (1)
My research consist to model the dispersion of tropical timber species in Latin America, and I need to find some alternative species that could replace this priority species in a future scenario of decrease in the environmental distribution or access of genetic resources. The priority species are:
Cordia alliodora
Tabebuia rosea
Cedrela odorata
Pachira quinata
Enterolobium cyclocarpum
Albizia saman
Andira inermis