,
8 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
nature.com/articles/s4155…
🥔🥔🥔 Our herbarium genomics work with @hernanaburbano et al. is out in @NatureEcoEvo! We reconstructed potato introduction and adaptation to Europe using historic genomes (including Darwin's specimens); extract below:
1/7
🥔🥔🥔 Our herbarium genomics work with @hernanaburbano et al. is out in @NatureEcoEvo! We reconstructed potato introduction and adaptation to Europe using historic genomes (including Darwin's specimens); extract below:
1/7
Historic records show that European potatoes came from Andes, yet morphologically and phenologically they resemble lowland Chilean landraces. No wonder why!
2/7
2/7
Our temporal series of potatoes' genomes in Europe show that it was first introduced from Andes, and admixed with Chilean potatoes in 19th century.
3/7
3/7
At about the same time potato gained adaptation to tuberizing in long days, which allowed it to be successfully cultivated in winter-constrained conditions in Europe. Interestingly, our small sample of Chilean landraces were adapted differently.
4/7
4/7
Making its story even more complex, European potato admixed with wild relatives. We are likely picking up the genome-wide signal from early 20th century resistance breeding.
5/7
5/7
All this explains why the diversity of European potato matches that of its ancestors in the center of diversity in South American Andes (although we have a lot of work catching up with the tastiness).
6/7
6/7
We also found candidate genes for pre-adaptation to long-day tuberization. These were previously described to play a role in tuberization initiation. Together, we show 350 years of potato evolution in Europe by tracing its molecular adaptive potential and complex ancestry.
7/7
7/7
Here is the read-only version without paywall: rdcu.be/bHBXz
