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Review
. 2018 Sep 21;19(1):140.
doi: 10.1186/s13059-018-1528-8.

Genomic approaches for studying crop evolution

Mona Schreiber  1 , Nils Stein  1 , Martin Mascher  2   3
Affiliations
Review

Genomic approaches for studying crop evolution

Mona Schreiber et al. Genome Biol. .

Abstract

Understanding how crop plants evolved from their wild relatives and spread around the world can inform about the origins of agriculture. Here, we review how the rapid development of genomic resources and tools has made it possible to conduct genetic mapping and population genetic studies to unravel the molecular underpinnings of domestication and crop evolution in diverse crop species. We propose three future avenues for the study of crop evolution: establishment of high-quality reference genomes for crops and their wild relatives; genomic characterization of germplasm collections; and the adoption of novel methodologies such as archaeogenetics, epigenomics, and genome editing.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Time of domestication and genome size of domesticated plants.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Genome sequence assembly from short-read and long-read data together with genome mapping technologies. Either short or long reads can be used to assemble sequence contigs and scaffolds, which can be ordered along the chromosomes by a battery of super-scaffolding methods.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Future directions of domestication research. The study of crop evolution will continue to rely on the population genetic analysis of diversity panels comprising domesticates and their wild relatives. If well-preserved archaeobotanical remains are available, ancient samples can serve as a time-capsule informing about past demography of a crop. Moreover, new approaches such as epigenomics and gene editing will enrich the toolbox of domestication research.
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