Evolutionary and food supply implications of ongoing maize domestication by Mexican campesinos.

ABSTRACT: Maize evolution under domestication is a process that continues today. Case studies suggest that Mexican smallholder family farmers, known as campesinos, contribute importantly to this, but their significance has not been explicitly quantified and analysed as a whole. Here, we examine the evolutionary and food security implications of the scale and scope under which campesinos produce maize. We gathered official municipal-level data on maize production under rainfed conditions and identified campesino agriculture as occurring in municipalities with average yields of less than or equal to 3 t ha^-1 Environmental conditions vary widely in those municipalities and are associated with a great diversity of maize races, representing 85.3% of native maize samples co

SUBMITTER: Bellon MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6125897 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature