The Diversity of Crop Plants

Hawkes, J. G.

doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674183551

Cited by 287 publications

(206 citation statements)

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“…Some cultivars are quite distinct from their original wild types. Gigantism and morphological diversification in the plant organs, such as seeds, fruits and leaves, are well known as one of major elements in the 'domestication syndrome' of food crops (Hawkes, 1983). Similar phenomena are to be expected in floriculture crops, especially in characteristics related to aesthetic quality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Quantitative evaluation of the petal shape variation in Primula sieboldii caused by breeding process in the last 300 years

et al. 2005

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Primula sieboldii (E. Morren) has been a popular garden plant at least since the Edo period, about 300 years ago. We compared petal form between cultivars and wild populations in order to characterise the changes that have occurred during domestication. The comparison was made using EF-PCA analysis, which describes overall petal shape mathematically by transforming petal contour coordinates into elliptic Fourier descriptors; it subsequently summarises these descriptors by principal component analysis (PCA). Rearing cultivars in a common-garden experiment identified the PCs with a substantial genetic element. A clear heritable component was detected for the PCs characterising symmetrical variation in flower shape, but not the asymmetrical variation. Wild populations of this species have become endangered owing to habitat destruction by human activity, and many lowland floodplain habitats have been lost. Variation within the remaining wild populations was significantly lower than in the cultivars for PC1 (aspect ratio), PC3 (curvature of proximal and distal parts) and petal area; but not for PC2 (depth of head notch) and PC4 (position of the centre of gravity). The shifts in petal form from the wild populations to the cultivars parallel those seen in other croptypes following domestication, including an increase in size and diversity of forms: cultivars have shallower head notches, more fan-shaped petals and larger petals than do wild P. sieboldii. Heredity (2005) 94, 657-663.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Quantitative evaluation of the petal shape variation in Primula sieboldii caused by breeding process in the last 300 years

et al. 2005

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“…The domestication syndrome is the set of characters that distinguishes the crop plant from its wild ancestors [17,[46][47][48]. The characters arise at least in part from human selection and hence relate to ways in which the plants are cultivated and harvested.…”

Section: Box 1 the Domestication Syndrome Of Cultivated Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The complex origins of domesticated crops in the Fertile Crescent

Brown

Jones

Powell

et al. 2009

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

267

159

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A combination of genetics and archaeology is revealing the complexity of the relationships between crop plants and their wild ancestors. Archaeobotanical studies are showing that acquisition of the full set of traits observed in domesticated cereals was a protracted process, intermediate stages being seen at early farming sites throughout the Fertile Crescent. New genetic data are confirming the multiregional nature of cereal domestication, correcting a previous view that each crop was domesticated by a rapid, unique and geographically localised process. Here we review the evidence that has prompted this reevaluation of the origins of domesticated crops in the Fertile Crescent and highlight the impact that this new multiregional model is having on modern breeding programmes.The importance of agriculture The beginning of agriculture around 10 000 years ago has repeatedly been seen as the major transition in the human past, a changeover from the natural environment in control of humans, to humans in control of the natural environment. Before agriculture, humans were hunter-gatherers, dependent on wild resources for their nutritional requirements, which led to a largely nomadic lifestyle dictated by the annual cycle of animal and plant availability. The cultivation of plants and the husbandry of animals enabled humans to exert a measure of control over their food resources, protecting them from climatic and environmental uncertainty. As a result of further stabilisation and increase in the food supply, populations grew rapidly and the need for all members of a community to devote themselves to food procurement declined, leading to stratified societies and the elaborate civilisations and world systems of the historic period. Our present-day dependence on agriculture needs no emphasis: without it the world would support only a fraction of the current human population.As such a key episode, it is no surprise that a diversity of research approaches has been applied to the study of agricultural origins. For archaeologists, agriculture is a central component in the cultural changes associated with the beginning of the Neolithic (see Glossary), with much of the recent focus on placing the domestication of plants in its correct context within the package of changes originally described by Gordon Childe as a 'revolution' [1] but now viewed as a series of distinct episodes occurring at different places at different times. Implicit in this debate has been a recognition that the transition to agriculture is itself a multi-episode process that begins with gathering from the wild and ends with the cultivation of plants that have undergone the full suite of genetic and phenotypic changes that characterise the domesticated crop [2,3]. Anthropologists, ecologists and evolutionists have proposed various models for the role of humans in this multi-episode process, these ranging from a view of agriculture as one of the inspired human inventions of the past [4] to hypotheses that define domestication as the outcome of a natural coevolu...

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“…Modern agriculture makes use of landraces to improve commercial crops, by crossing in a resistance or adapting a commercial cultivar to a different environment. Although landraces can serve as essential building stones for new cultivars and important for future crop breeding (Maxted 2012), modern agricultural technology and the introduction of new high-yielding cultivars are largely eliminating the wide range of crop genetic diversity that has evolved during the five to 10,000 years since food plants were first domesticated (Hawkes 1983).…”

Section: Modern Agriculture and The Importance Of Landracesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Botanical Gardens of the Dispossessed’ revisited: richness and significance of Old World crops grown by Suriname Maroons

Andel

Velden²,

Reijers³

2015

Genet Resour Crop Evol

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Old World crops entered the Americas as provision on slave ships and were planted by enslaved Africans in their home gardens, known as the 'Botanical Gardens of the Dispossessed'. Escaped slaves who settled in Maroon communities in Suriname's forested interior practiced shifting cultivation for centuries with seeds they brought from their home gardens. After the abolishment of slavery, Creoles largely abandoned agriculture and farming became the activity of Asian wage laborers. Maroon agriculture has never been studied in detail. The recent discovery of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) in a Maroon garden initiated this ethnobotanical study on Old World crops grown by Maroons, and their motivations for maintaining this agrodiversity. In 2013, we collected crop cultivars and landraces and interviewed 16 Aucan and Saramaccan Maroon farmers. The greatest richness was encountered in bananas, taro, okra and rice. Most crops were used for food, but sesame, melegueta pepper and African rice largely lost their food function and served mainly for rituals. Farmers exchanged seeds and tubers with family members and other ethnicities in both urban and forest communities. Spending time in the capital during childbirth or illness resulted in the loss of typical Maroon crops (e.g., Bambara groundnut), as seeds lost viability during the farmer's absence. Motivation to grow specific crops and cultivars varied from tradition, food preference, seasonal spreading, rituals and traditional medicine. Documentation of specific landrace properties, storage of seeds in germplasm centers and in situ conservation are urgently needed to safeguard these previously undocumented Maroon landraces.

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The Diversity of Crop Plants

Cited by 287 publications

References 0 publications

Quantitative evaluation of the petal shape variation in Primula sieboldii caused by breeding process in the last 300 years

Quantitative evaluation of the petal shape variation in Primula sieboldii caused by breeding process in the last 300 years

The complex origins of domesticated crops in the Fertile Crescent

The ‘Botanical Gardens of the Dispossessed’ revisited: richness and significance of Old World crops grown by Suriname Maroons

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