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Reply to: Where was wheat domesticated?

Nature Plants volume 9, pages 1203–1206 (2023)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 24 July 2023

replying to Y. Lev-Mirom and A. Distelfeld Nature Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01468-z (2023)

Wheat domestication shifted human subsistence from foraging to farming, which was a turning point that allowed the rise of civilization1,2. There is immense interest among diverse audiences in better understanding the process of wheat domestication. For decades, the geographic origin of wheat domestication has been controversial, with hypotheses of the origin from either the northern Levant alone3,4,5,6 or the region spanning both the northern and southern Levant7,8,9,10. Using local sequence analysis of key domestication genes TtBtr1-A and TtBtr1-B, our recent study showed evidence for the former scenario11. In contrast, the earlier work by Nave et al. supported the latter one9. We appreciated the feedback from Lev-Mirom and Distelfeld12 and would like to address the authors’ critiques.

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Fig. 1: The local phylogenies of TtBtr1-A and TtBtr1-B using SNPs and indels within the 1 Mb region and 2 kb region encompassing domestication loci.
Fig. 2: IBS distance distribution of TtBtr1 genes between each wild emmer accession and all accessions of domesticated emmer and free-threshing tetraploids.

References

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xuebo Zhao, Yafei Guo.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Innovative Academy of Seed Design, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xuebo Zhao, Yafei Guo & Fei Lu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xuebo Zhao, Yafei Guo & Fei Lu

  3. CAS-JIC Centre of Excellence for Plant and Microbial Science, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Fei Lu

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  1. Xuebo Zhao
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  2. Yafei Guo
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Contributions

X.Z. and Y.G. performed the data analysis, plotted the paper figures and drafted the paper. F.L. coordinated the project and finalized the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the paper.

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Correspondence to Fei Lu.

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Nature Plants thanks Alexandra Przewieslik-Allen and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Zhao, X., Guo, Y. & Lu, F. Reply to: Where was wheat domesticated?. Nat. Plants 9, 1203–1206 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01468-z

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