Functional traits differ between cereal crop progenitors and other wild grasses gathered in the Neolithic fertile crescent.

ABSTRACT: The reasons why some plant species were selected as crops and others were abandoned during the Neolithic emergence of agriculture are poorly understood. We tested the hypothesis that the traits of Fertile Crescent crop progenitors were advantageous in the fertile, disturbed habitats surrounding early settlements and in cultivated fields. We screened functional traits related to competition and disturbance in a group of grass species that were increasingly exploited by early plant gatherers, and that were later domesticated (crop progenitors); and in a set of grass species for which there is archaeological evidence of gathering, but which were never domesticated (wild species). We hypothesised that crop progenitors would have greater seed mass, growth rate, height and yield than wild specie

SUBMITTER: Cunniff J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3905035 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature