Analysis of >3400 worldwide eggplant accessions reveals two independent domestication events and multiple migration-diversification routes.

Eggplant (Solanum melongena) is an important Solanaceous crop, widely cultivated and consumed in Asia, the Mediterranean basin, and Southeast Europe. Its domestication centers and migration and diversification routes are still a matter of debate. We report the largest georeferenced and genotyped collection to this date for eggplant and its wild relatives, consisting of 3499 accessions from seven worldwide genebanks, originating from 105 countries in five continents.

Forgotten food crops in sub-Saharan Africa for healthy diets in a changing climate.

As climate changes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Africa's "forgotten" food crops offer a wide range of options to diversify major staple production as a key measure toward achieving zero hunger and healthy diets. So far, however, these forgotten food crops have been neglected in SSA's climate-change adaptation strategies. Here, we quantified their capacity to adapt cropping systems of SSA's major staples of maize, rice, cassava, and yams to changing climates for the four subregions of West, Central, East, and Southern Africa.

Global range expansion history of pepper ( spp.) revealed by over 10,000 genebank accessions.

Genebanks collect and preserve vast collections of plants and detailed passport information, with the aim of preserving genetic diversity for conservation and breeding. Genetic characterization of such collections has the potential to elucidate the genetic histories of important crops, use marker-trait associations to identify loci controlling traits of interest, search for loci undergoing selection, and contribute to genebank management by identifying taxonomic misassignments and duplicates. We conducted a genomic scan with genotyping by sequencing (GBS) derived single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of 10,038 pepper ( spp.

Holocene land and sea-trade routes explain complex patterns of pre-Columbian crop dispersion.

Pre-Columbian crop movement remains poorly understood, hampering a good interpretation of the domestication and diversification of Neotropical crops. To provide new insights into pre-Columbian crop movement, we applied spatial genetics to identify and compare dispersal routes of three American crops between Mesoamerica and the Andes, two important centres of pre-Columbian crop and cultural diversity. Our analysis included georeferenced simple-sequence repeats (SSR) marker datasets of 1852 genotypes of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.

Mapping patterns of abiotic and biotic stress resilience uncovers conservation gaps and breeding potential of Vigna wild relatives.

This study provides insights in patterns of distribution of abiotic and biotic stress resilience across Vigna gene pools to enhance the use and conservation of these genetic resources for legume breeding. Vigna is a pantropical genus with more than 88 taxa including important crops such as V. radiata (mung bean) and V.

The future of coffee and cocoa agroforestry in a warmer Mesoamerica.

Climate change threatens coffee production and the livelihoods of thousands of families in Mesoamerica that depend on it. Replacing coffee with cocoa and integrating trees in combined agroforestry systems to ameliorate abiotic stress are among the proposed alternatives to overcome this challenge. These two alternatives do not consider the vulnerability of cocoa and tree species commonly used in agroforestry plantations to future climate conditions.

Human diets drive range expansion of megafauna-dispersed fruit species.

Neotropical fruit species once dispersed by Pleistocene megafauna have regained relevance in diversifying human diets to address malnutrition. Little is known about the historic interactions between humans and these fruit species. We quantified the human role in modifying geographic and environmental ranges of Neotropical fruit species by comparing the distribution of megafauna-dispersed fruit species that have been part of both human and megafauna diets with fruit species that were exclusively part of megafauna diets.

Exome sequencing of geographically diverse barley landraces and wild relatives gives insights into environmental adaptation.

After domestication, during a process of widespread range extension, barley adapted to a broad spectrum of agricultural environments. To explore how the barley genome responded to the environmental challenges it encountered, we sequenced the exomes of a collection of 267 georeferenced landraces and wild accessions. A combination of genome-wide analyses showed that patterns of variation have been strongly shaped by geography and that variant-by-environment associations for individual genes are prominent in our data set.

An Integrated Hypothesis on the Domestication of Bactris gasipaes.

Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) has had a central place in the livelihoods of people in the Americas since pre-Columbian times, notably for its edible fruits and multi-purpose wood. The botanical taxon includes both domesticated and wild varieties. Domesticated var gasipaes is believed to derive from one or more of the three wild types of var.

Screening Genetic Resources of Capsicum Peppers in Their Primary Center of Diversity in Bolivia and Peru.

For most crops, like Capsicum, their diversity remains under-researched for traits of interest for food, nutrition and other purposes. A small investment in screening this diversity for a wide range of traits is likely to reveal many traditional varieties with distinguished values. One objective of this study was to demonstrate, with Capsicum as model crop, the application of indicators of phenotypic and geographic diversity as effective criteria for selecting promising genebank accessions for multiple uses from crop centers of diversity.

Genetic diversity and ecological niche modelling of wild barley: refugia, large-scale post-LGM range expansion and limited mid-future climate threats?

Describing genetic diversity in wild barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum) in geographic and environmental space in the context of current, past and potential future climates is important for conservation and for breeding the domesticated crop (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare).

Current issues in cereal crop biodiversity.

The exploration, conservation, and use of agricultural biodiversity are essential components of efficient transdisciplinary research for a sustainable agriculture and food sector. Most recent advances on plant biotechnology and crop genomics must be complemented with a holistic management of plant genetic resources. Plant breeding programs aimed at improving agricultural productivity and food security can benefit from the systematic exploitation and conservation of genetic diversity to meet the demands of a growing population facing climate change.

Conservation priorities for Prunus africana defined with the aid of spatial analysis of genetic data and climatic variables.

Conservation priorities for Prunus africana, a tree species found across Afromontane regions, which is of great commercial interest internationally and of local value for rural communities, were defined with the aid of spatial analyses applied to a set of georeferenced molecular marker data (chloroplast and nuclear microsatellites) from 32 populations in 9 African countries. Two approaches for the selection of priority populations for conservation were used, differing in the way they optimize representation of intra-specific diversity of P. africana across a minimum number of populations.

Compositional characterization of native Peruvian chili peppers (Capsicum spp.).

The national Capsicum germplasm bank of Peru at INIA holds a unique collection of more than 700 Capsicum accessions, including many landraces. These conserved accessions have never been thoroughly characterized or evaluated. Another smaller collection exists at UNALM, and CIDRA provided taxonomically characterized fruits from the Amazon region of Ucayali.

Present spatial diversity patterns of Theobroma cacao L. in the neotropics reflect genetic differentiation in pleistocene refugia followed by human-influenced dispersal.

Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is indigenous to the Amazon basin, but is generally believed to have been domesticated in Mesoamerica for the production of chocolate beverage. However, cacao's distribution of genetic diversity in South America is also likely to reflect pre-Columbian human influences that were superimposed on natural processes of genetic differentiation.

Mapping genetic diversity of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.): application of spatial analysis for conservation and use of plant genetic resources.

There is a growing call for inventories that evaluate geographic patterns in diversity of plant genetic resources maintained on farm and in species' natural populations in order to enhance their use and conservation. Such evaluations are relevant for useful tropical and subtropical tree species, as many of these species are still undomesticated, or in incipient stages of domestication and local populations can offer yet-unknown traits of high value to further domestication. For many outcrossing species, such as most trees, inbreeding depression can be an issue, and genetic diversity is important to sustain local production.