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Domestication: Polyploidy boosts domestication

Nature Plants volume 2, Article number: 16116 (2016) Cite this article

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A detailed phylogenetic study now shows that there is a compelling association between polyploidy and domestication, and that polyploidy more frequently occurs before domestication.

Polyploid plants have multiple chromosome sets (derived from the same species or related species) due to abnormal cell division or through hybridization. Because of the increase in genome size and thus genetic diversity, polyploids can carry more favourable genetic variants compared to their wild diploid relatives — disease resistance and adaptation to diverse environments, or increased adaptation to the current local environment2. Polyploidy increases the amount of raw material on which natural and artificial selection can act, leading to increased adaptation to the local environment due to novel variants in the polyploids or fixed heterozygosity. Genetic diversity can be greatly reduced during a domestication bottleneck — so the additional genetic diversity provided by polyploidization can be crucial. In addition, many genomic, transcriptomic and epigenetic novelties are generated through polyploidy3. Polyploidization also alters dominance relationships among alleles; it is harder to select and fix recessive mutations. Dominance can preserve function if any of several copies of an allele remain. Polyploidization of a domesticate can also create genetic isolation from a wild progenitor, effectively limiting gene flow between wild and domesticated plants so that favourable traits can be maintained in the cultivated crops during domestication4,5. Some polyploids exhibit ‘gigantism’ for traits that can mimic those observed in the domestication syndrome, such as increased seed or grain size. Polyploids may therefore be more frequently the target of human efforts at domestication owing to increased ‘curb appeal’.

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Figure 1: Two possible scenarios involving polyploidy and domestication.

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Affiliations

  1. Zhou Fang is in the Crop Science Division, Bayer, Morrisville, North Carolina, USA.

    Zhou Fang

  2. Peter L. Morrell is in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota, USA.

    Peter L. Morrell

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  1. Zhou Fang
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  2. Peter L. Morrell
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Correspondence to Zhou Fang.

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Fang, Z., Morrell, P. Domestication: Polyploidy boosts domestication. Nature Plants 2, 16116 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.116

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.116

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