The potential role of genetic assimilation during maize domestication.

ABSTRACT: Domestication research has largely focused on identification of morphological and genetic differences between extant populations of crops and their wild relatives. Little attention has been paid to the potential effects of environment despite substantial known changes in climate from the time of domestication to modern day. In recent research, the exposure of teosinte (i.e., wild maize) to environments similar to the time of domestication, resulted in a plastic induction of domesticated phenotypes in teosinte. These results suggest that early agriculturalists may have selected for genetic mechanisms that cemented domestication phenotypes initially induced by a plastic response of teosinte to environment, a process known as genetic assimilation. To better understand this phenomenon and the

SUBMITTER: Lorant A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5590903 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature