Patterns of domestication in the Ethiopian oil-seed crop noug ('Guizotia abyssinica')

Title
Patterns of domestication in the Ethiopian oil-seed crop noug ('Guizotia abyssinica')
Publication Date
2015
Author(s)
Dempewolf, Hannes
Tesfaye, Misteru
Rieseberg, Loren H
Teshome, Abel
Bjorkman, Anne D
Andrew, Rose
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0099-8336
Email: randre20@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:randre20
Scascitelli, Moira
Black, Scott
Bekele, Endashaw
Engels, Johannes M M
Cronk, Quentin C B
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc
Place of publication
United States of America
DOI
10.1111/eva.12256
UNE publication id
une:19788
Abstract
Noug ('Guizotia abyssinica') is a semidomesticated oil-seed crop, which is primarily cultivated in Ethiopia. Unlike its closest crop relative, sunflower, noug has small seeds, small flowering heads, many branches, many flowering heads, and indeterminate flowering, and it shatters in the field. Here, we conducted common garden studies and microsatellite analyses of genetic variation to test whether high levels of crop-wild gene flow and/or unfavorable phenotypic correlations have hindered noug domestication. With the exception of one population, analyses of microsatellite variation failed to detect substantial recent admixture between noug and its wild progenitor. Likewise, only very weak correlations were found between seed mass and the number or size of flowering heads. Thus, noug's 'atypical' domestication syndrome does not seem to be a consequence of recent introgression or unfavorable phenotypic correlations. Nonetheless, our data do reveal evidence of local adaptation of noug cultivars to different precipitation regimes, as well as high levels of phenotypic plasticity, which may permit reasonable yields under diverse environmental conditions. Why noug has not been fully domesticated remains a mystery, but perhaps early farmers selected for resilience to episodic drought or untended environments rather than larger seeds. Domestication may also have been slowed by noug's outcrossing mating system.
Link
Citation
Evolutionary Applications, 8(5), p. 464-475
ISSN
1752-4571
1752-4563
Start page
464
End page
475

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