Evolution of wild barley at “Evolution Canyon”: adaptation, speciation, pre-agricultural collection, and barley improvement

Abstract

The present paper reviews the state of cultivated barley, Hordeum vulgare, in Old World agriculture and its domestication through its progenitor, wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum. It focuses on the adaptation, incipient sympatric speciation, and domestication of H. spontaneum in the "Evolution Canyon" model. The "Evolution Canyon," at lower Nahal Oren, Mount Carmel, Israel, reveals evolution in action at a microsite caused by interslope microclimatic divergence across life from viruses and bacteria through fungi, plants, and animals including mammals. The interslope adaptive complexes of H. spontaneum at "Evolution Canyon" include genetic diversity, drought resistance by dehydrin I, rhizosphere bacteria, and Eibi I gene promoter. Isa defense locus and vitamin E components also diverge between the opposite tropical and temperate abutting slopes. A highly likely pre-agricultural collection site of H. spontaneum is described on the Natufian cemetery of the Oren and Um Usba caves in "Evolution Canyon". Finally, the paper briefly reviews the remarkable interslope incipient sympatric speciation of H. spontaneum at "Evolution Canyon", as is true for other organisms such as bacteria, Drosophila, and spiny mice, Acomys. Sympatric ecological speciation is still controversial and "Evolution Canyon" provides an appropriate site to explore it in H. spontaneum and other organisms across life.

Exploring natural selection to guide breeding for agriculture

“…Studies of the genetic basis of adaptation in wild populations can be used to ensure resilience that is retained in crop varieties while domestication traits are being selected. The evolution of adaptation, incipient speciation, possible domestication and improvement of wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum , has been reviewed (Nevo, ). Advances in DNA sequencing are revealing the basis of domestication in ways that should allow accelerated domestication of new species by being more deliberate in selecting for the required alleles at domestication loci in the transfer of genes from wild relatives into domesticated crops (Henry, ).…”

New Promising Varieties of Cultures Bred by Omsk Agrarian Scientific Center

“…Barley grain is widely used for fodder (over 75%), food (15%) and brewing (8%) purposes [9]. Yield of a variety is the most important parameter in assessing not only the efficiency of variety cultivation, but also of adaptability parameters [10,11] which allow assessing the responsiveness of a variety to improving cultivation conditions. Attention is currently given to protein content as one of the main parameters of grain quality [12] because, compared to other crops; it is barley that has an undeniable advantage in balanced amino acid composition of protein.…”

Solar Radiation-Associated Adaptive SNP Genetic Differentiation in Wild Emmer Wheat, Triticum dicoccoides

“…Local microscale natural laboratories are designated “Evolution Canyon” (EC) models by Nevo, and many studies on the “Evolution Canyon” model indicated that micro-geographic studies are excellent tests of local adaptive evolution and the evolutionary forces shaping evolution (Nevo, 2009, 2014, 2015; Venetsky et al, 2015; Huang et al, 2016). Ecological diversification between habitats favors local adaptation.…”

“…Environmental factors, such as water availability, light intensity, soil composition as well as surrounding biota, may exert diverse selection that might drive evolutionary divergence of plant populations (Peleg et al, 2008; Ren et al, 2013a; Yin et al, 2015). Of all the environmental factors, solar radiation is perhaps the most spatially and temporally heterogeneous (Martínez-Ferri et al, 2001; Nevo, 2015). Solar radiation is associated with higher temperature and drought.…”