Evidence of a Strong Domestication Bottleneck in the Recently Cultivated New Zealand Endemic Root Crop, Arthropodium cirratum (Asparagaceae).

ABSTRACT: We use chloroplast DNA sequencing to examine aspects of the pre-European Māori cultivation of an endemic New Zealand root crop, Arthropodium cirratum (rengarenga). Researching the early stages of domestication is not possible for the majority of crops, because their cultivation began many thousands of years ago and/or they have been substantially altered by modern breeding methods. We found high levels of genetic variation and structuring characterised the natural distribution of A. cirratum, while the translocated populations only retained low levels of this diversity, indicating a strong bottleneck even at the early stages of this species' cultivation. The high structuring detected at four chloroplast loci within the natural A. cirratum range enabled the putative source(s) of the translo

SUBMITTER: Shepherd LD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4806853 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature