When half is more than the whole: Wheat domestication syndrome reconsidered

Citation:

Peleg, Z. ; Abbo, S. ; Gopher, A. . When Half Is More Than The Whole: Wheat Domestication Syndrome Reconsidered. Evolutionary ApplicationsEvolutionary ApplicationsEvol Appl 2022, n/a.

Date Published:

2022

Abstract:

Abstract Two opposing models currently dominate Near Eastern plant domestication research. The core area-one event model depicts a knowledge-based, conscious, geographically centered, rapid single-event domestication, while the protracted-autonomous model emphasizes a non-centered, millennia-long process based on unconscious dynamics. The latter model relies, in part, on quantitative depictions of diachronic changes (in archaeological remains) in proportions of spikelet shattering to non-shattering, towards full dominance of the non-shattering (domesticated) phenotypes in cultivated cereal populations. Recent wild wheat genome assembly suggests that shattering and non-shattering spikelets may originate from the same (individual) genotype. Therefore, their proportions among archaeobotanical assemblages cannot reliably describe the presumed protracted-selection dynamics underlying wheat domestication. This calls for a reappraisal of the ?domestication syndrome? concept associated with cereal domestication.

Notes:

https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.13472

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