Molecular Clocks and Archeogenomics of a Late Period Egyptian Date Palm Leaf Reveal Introgression from Wild Relatives and Add Timestamps on the Domestication.

ABSTRACT: The date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, has been a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and North African agriculture for millennia. It was first domesticated in the Persian Gulf, and its evolution appears to have been influenced by gene flow from two wild relatives, P. theophrasti, currently restricted to Crete and Turkey, and P. sylvestris, widespread from Bangladesh to the West Himalayas. Genomes of ancient date palm seeds show that gene flow from P. theophrasti to P. dactylifera may have occurred by ∼2,200 years ago, but traces of P. sylvestris could not be detected. We here integrate archeogenomics of a ∼2,100-year-old P. dactylifera leaf from Saqqara (Egypt), molecular-clock dating, and coalescence approaches with population genomic tests, to probe the hybridization between the date palm and it

SUBMITTER: Perez-Escobar OA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8476131 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature