HIV epidemiology among female sex workers and their clients in the Middle East and North Africa: systematic review, meta-analyses, and meta-regressions by Hiam Chemaitelly, Helen A. Weiss, Clara Calvert, Manale Harfouche, Laith J. Abu-Raddad

“…Compared to Eastern MENA, the adjusted odds ratios (AORs) ranged from 0.2 (95% CI = 0.1–0.4) in the Fertile Crescent to 45.4 (95% CI = 24.7–83.7) in the Horn of Africa. …”
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Reactions of Triticum urartu accessions to two races of the wheat yellow rust pathogen by Jibin Xiao, Lingli Dong, Huaibing Jin, Juncheng Zhang, Kunpu Zhang, Na Liu, Xinyun Han, Hongyuan Zheng, Wenming Zheng, Daowen Wang

“…Triticum urartu (AA, 2n = 2x = 14), a wild grass endemic to the Fertile Crescent (FC), is the progenitor of the A subgenome in common wheat. …”
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Genome-wide diversity and admixture of five indigenous cattle populations from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia by Tsadkan Zegeye, Tsadkan Zegeye, Tsadkan Zegeye, Gurja Belay, Adriana Vallejo-Trujillo, Jianlin Han, Jianlin Han, Olivier Hanotte, Olivier Hanotte, Olivier Hanotte

“…The Tigray region, where we found around eight per cent of the indigenous cattle population of Ethiopia, is considered as the historic centre of the country, with the ancient pre-Aksumite and Aksumite civilisations in contact with the civilisations of the Fertile Crescent and the Indian subcontinent. Here, we used whole genome sequencing data to characterise the genomic diversity, relatedness, and admixture of five cattle populations (Abergelle, Arado, Begait, Erob, and Raya) indigenous to the Tigray region of Ethiopia. …”
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Characterization of the genetic basis of local adaptation of wheat landraces from Iran and Pakistan using genome‐wide association study by Uzma Hanif, Hadi Alipour, Alvina Gul, Li Jing, Reza Darvishzadeh, Rabia Amir, Faiza Munir, Muhammad Kashif Ilyas, Abdul Ghafoor, Sadar Uddin Siddiqui, Paul St. Amand, Amy Bernado, Guihua Bai, Kai Sonder, Awais Rasheed, Zhonghu He, Huihui Li

“…A collection of 512 wheat landraces from the eastern edge of the Fertile Crescent in Iran and Pakistan were genotyped using genome‐wide single nucleotide polymorphism markers generated by genotyping‐by‐sequencing. …”
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Iron age genomic data from Althiburos – Tunisia renew the debate on the origins of African taurine cattle by Catarina Ginja, Silvia Guimarães, Rute R. da Fonseca, Rita Rasteiro, Ricardo Rodríguez-Varela, Luciana G. Simões, Cindy Sarmento, Maria Carme Belarte, Nabil Kallala, Joan Ramon Torres, Joan Sanmartí, Ana Margarida Arruda, Cleia Detry, Simon Davis, José Matos, Anders Götherström, Ana Elisabete Pires, Silvia Valenzuela-Lamas

“…Summary: The Maghreb is a key region for understanding the dynamics of cattle dispersal and admixture with local aurochs following their earliest domestication in the Fertile Crescent more than 10,000 years ago. Here, we present data on autosomal genomes and mitogenomes obtained for four archaeological specimens of Iron Age (∼2,800 cal BP–2,000 cal BP) domestic cattle from the Eastern Maghreb, i.e. …”
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The Elbrus (Caucasus, Russia) ice core record – Part 2: history of desert dust deposition by S. Kutuzov, M. Legrand, M. Legrand, S. Preunkert, S. Preunkert, P. Ginot, P. Ginot, P. Ginot, V. Mikhalenko, K. Shukurov, A. Poliukhov, A. Poliukhov, P. Toropov, P. Toropov

“…Dust concentrations prominently increase in the ice core over the past 200 years, confirming that the recent droughts in the Fertile Crescent (1998–2012 CE) present the most severe aridity experienced in at least the past two centuries. …”
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Aegilops crassa Boiss. repeatome characterized using low-coverage NGS as a source of new FISH markers: Application in phylogenetic studies of the Triticeae by Pavel Yu. Kroupin, Ekaterina D. Badaeva, Ekaterina D. Badaeva, Victoria M. Sokolova, Nadezhda N. Chikida, Maria Kh. Belousova, Sergei A. Surzhikov, Ekaterina A. Nikitina, Alina A. Kocheshkova, Daniil S. Ulyanov, Aleksey S. Ermolaev, Thi Mai Luong Khuat, Olga V. Razumova, Anna I. Yurkina, Gennady I. Karlov, Mikhail G. Divashuk

“…Aegilops crassa Boiss. is polyploid grass species that grows in the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent, Afghanistan, and Middle Asia. It consists of tetraploid (4x) and hexaploid (6x) cytotypes (2n = 4x = 28, D1D1XcrXcr and 2n = 6x = 42, D1D1XcrXcrD2D2, respectively) that are similar morphologically. …”
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Wild Wheat Rhizosphere-Associated Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria Exudates: Effect on Root Development in Modern Wheat and Composition by Houssein Zhour, Fabrice Bray, Israa Dandache, Guillaume Marti, Stéphanie Flament, Amélie Perez, Maëlle Lis, Llorenç Cabrera-Bosquet, Thibaut Perez, Cécile Fizames, Ezekiel Baudoin, Ikram Madani, Loubna El Zein, Anne-Aliénor Véry, Christian Rolando, Hervé Sentenac, Ali Chokr, Jean-Benoît Peltier

“…Diazotrophic bacteria isolated from the rhizosphere of a wild wheat ancestor, grown from its refuge area in the Fertile Crescent, were found to be efficient Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR), upon interaction with an elite wheat cultivar. …”
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Genome-wide SNP profiling of worldwide goat populations reveals strong partitioning of diversity and highlights post-domestication migration routes by Licia Colli, Marco Milanesi, Andrea Talenti, Francesca Bertolini, Minhui Chen, Alessandra Crisà, Kevin Gerard Daly, Marcello Del Corvo, Bernt Guldbrandtsen, Johannes A. Lenstra, Benjamin D. Rosen, Elia Vajana, Gennaro Catillo, Stéphane Joost, Ezequiel Luis Nicolazzi, Estelle Rochat, Max F. Rothschild, Bertrand Servin, Tad S. Sonstegard, Roberto Steri, Curtis P. Van Tassell, Paolo Ajmone-Marsan, Paola Crepaldi, Alessandra Stella, the AdaptMap Consortium

“…Conclusions After domestication in the Fertile Crescent in the early Neolithic era (ca. 12,000 YBP), domestic goats that already carried differentiated gene pools spread to Europe, Africa and Asia. …”
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