Reticulated origin of domesticated emmer wheat supports a dynamic model for the emergence of agriculture in the fertile crescent.

ABSTRACT: We used supernetworks with datasets of nuclear gene sequences and novel markers detecting retrotransposon insertions in ribosomal DNA loci to reassess the evolutionary relationships among tetraploid wheats. We show that domesticated emmer has a reticulated genetic ancestry, sharing phylogenetic signals with wild populations from all parts of the wild range. The extent of the genetic reticulation cannot be explained by post-domestication gene flow between cultivated emmer and wild plants, and the phylogenetic relationships among tetraploid wheats are incompatible with simple linear descent of the domesticates from a single wild population. A more parsimonious explanation of the data is that domesticated emmer originates from a hybridized population of different wild lineages. The observed d

SUBMITTER: Civan P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3843696 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature