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The nature of selection during plant domestication

Nature volume 457, pages 843–848 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Plant domestication is an outstanding example of plant–animal co-evolution and is a far richer model for studying evolution than is generally appreciated. There have been numerous studies to identify genes associated with domestication, and archaeological work has provided a clear understanding of the dynamics of human cultivation practices during the Neolithic period. Together, these have provided a better understanding of the selective pressures that accompany crop domestication, and they demonstrate that a synthesis from the twin vantage points of genetics and archaeology can expand our understanding of the nature of evolutionary selection that accompanies domestication.

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Figure 1: Centres of plant domestication.
Figure 2: Evolution of grain-size increases in the archaeological record.
Figure 3: The evolution of non-shattering seeds in the archaeological record.
Figure 4: Frequency of non-shattering, domesticated, forms of barley, wheat and rice in the archaeological record.
Figure 5: Examples of selective sweeps at the maize gene tb1 and at the rice locus waxy.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Olsen and S. Colledge for critical reading of the manuscript. Work in the Purugganan laboratory is funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and Centre for Genomics and Systems Biology, 100 Washington Square East, New York University, New York, 10003, USA

    Michael D. Purugganan

  2. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY, UK

    Dorian Q. Fuller

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Correspondence should be addressed to M.D.P. (mp132@nyu.edu).

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Purugganan, M., Fuller, D. The nature of selection during plant domestication. Nature 457, 843–848 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07895

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