The runner bean is a legume species from Mesoamerica closely related to common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). It is a perennial species, but it is usually cultivated in small-scale agriculture as an annual crop for its dry seeds and edible immature pods. Unlike the common bean, P. coccineus has received little attention from a genetic standpoint. In this work we aim to (1) provide information about...

The molecular effect of domestication has rarely been examined in fungi. I examined the molecular signature of domestication on Aspergillus oryzae, a fungus used to ferment several Japanese food products. The ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions and the percentage of estimated deleterious substitutions along the A. oryzae lineage were lower than those in the wild sister lineage As...

Domestication of plants and animals is the major factor underlying human civilization. Cultivated wheats refer mainly to two types: the hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) accounting for about 95% of world wheat production, and the tetraploid durum wheat (T. durum) accounting for the other 5%. T. aestivum derived from a cross between domesticated emmer T. dicoccum and the goat grass Aegil...

The two independent domestication events in the genus Oryza that led to African and Asian rice offer an extremely useful system for studying the genetic basis of parallel evolution. This system is also characterized by parallel de-domestication events, with two genetically distinct weedy rice biotypes in the US derived from the Asian domesticate. One important trait that has been altered by ric...

Domestication of many of today’s main food crops occurred approximately 10,000 years ago with the beginning of agriculture. It has lead to the selection by farmers of a wide range of morphological and physiological traits that distinguish domesticated crops from their wild ancestors. These characteristics are collectively referred to as the domestication syndrome and include changes in plant ar...

Phylogenetic analyses of genes with demonstrated involvement in evolutionary transitions can be an important means of resolving conflicting hypotheses about evolutionary history or process. In sunflower, two genes have previously been shown to have experienced selective sweeps during its early domestication. In the present study, we identified a third candidate early domestication gene and cond...

The origins of agriculture, 10 000 years ago, led to profound changes in the biology of plants exploited as grain crops, through the process of domestication. This special case of evolution under cultivation led to domesticated cereals and pulses requiring humans for their dispersal, but the accompanying mechanisms causing higher productivity in these plants remain unknown. The classical view o...

A “cultivation prior to domestication”, or a “pre-domestication cultivation” phase features in many reconstructions of Near Eastern plant domestication. Archaeobotanists who accept this notion search for evidence support the assumption regarding wild plant’s cultivation phase, which their view, preceded and eventually led The presence non-crop remains archaeobotanical record interpreted as arab...

To further probe into whether swamp buffaloes were domesticated once or multiple times in China, this survey examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Control Region (D-loop) diversity of 471 individuals representing 22 populations of 455 Chinese swamp buffaloes and 16 river buffaloes. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that Chinese swamp buffaloes could be divided into two distinct lineages, A and B,...