Hybridization, missing wild ancestors and the domestication of cultivated diploid bananas.

Hybridization and introgressions are important evolutionary forces in plants. They contribute to the domestication of many species, including understudied clonal crops. Here, we examine their role in the domestication of a clonal crop of outmost importance, banana ( ssp.

Maximizing genetic representation in seed collections from populations of self and cross-pollinated banana wild relatives.

Background: Conservation of plant genetic resources, including the wild relatives of crops, plays an important and well recognised role in addressing some of the key challenges faced by humanity and the planet including ending hunger and biodiversity loss. However, the genetic diversity and representativeness of ex situ collections, especially that contained in seed collections, is often unknown. This limits meaningful assessments against conservation targets, impairs targeting of future collecting and limits their use.

Challenges for Ex Situ Conservation of Wild Bananas: Seeds Collected in Papua New Guinea Have Variable Levels of Desiccation Tolerance.

Ex situ seed conservation of banana crop wild relatives ( spp. L.), is constrained by critical knowledge gaps in their storage and germination behaviour.

MGIS: managing banana (Musa spp.) genetic resources information and high-throughput genotyping data.

https://www.crop-diversity.org/mgis/.

On the origin of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) genetic diversity in New Guinea, a secondary centre of diversity.

New Guinea is considered the most important secondary centre of diversity for sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas). We analysed nuclear and chloroplast genetic diversity of 417 New Guinea sweet potato landraces, representing agro-morphological diversity collected throughout the island, and compared this diversity with that in tropical America. The molecular data reveal moderate diversity across all accessions analysed, lower than that found in tropical America.