From bottleneck to boom: Polyploidy, genetic instability and response to artificial selection resolve the peanut paradox.

ABSTRACT: This study, the second in a three-part series, shows how peanut's polyploid origin enabled rapid diversification and enhanced domestication potential. Building on the knowledge that cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea) originated from a narrow hybridization between Arachis duranensis and Arachis ipaënsis less than 10 000 years ago, we are confronted with a paradox: how did such a narrow origin give rise to so much diversity-two subspecies, six botanical varieties, and thousands of landraces differing in growth habit, seed size, and pod morphology? Although several diploid Arachis species were cultivated earlier, only the allotetraploid became fully domesticated and widely adopted. The global success of peanut, despite its narrow genetic origin, suggests that polyploidization itself facilit

SUBMITTER: Lamon S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12737905 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature