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Gómez-Fernández A, Aranda I, Milla R. Early human selection of crops' wild progenitors explains the acquisitive physiology of modern cultivars. NATURE PLANTS 2024; 10:25-36. [PMID: 38172574 DOI: 10.1038/s41477-023-01588-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 11/09/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
Crops have resource-acquisitive leaf traits, which are usually attributed to the process of domestication. However, early choices of wild plants amenable for domestication may also have played a key role in the evolution of crops' physiological traits. Here we compiled data on 1,034 annual herbs to place the ecophysiological traits of 69 crops' wild progenitors in the context of global botanical variation, and we conducted a common-garden experiment to measure the effects of domestication on crop ecophysiology. Our study found that crops' wild progenitors already had high leaf nitrogen, photosynthesis, conductance and transpiration and soft leaves. After domestication, ecophysiological traits varied little and in idiosyncratic ways. Crops did not surpass the trait boundaries of wild species. Overall, the resource-acquisitive strategy of crops is largely due to the inheritance from their wild progenitors rather than to further breeding improvements. Our study concurs with recent literature highlighting constraints of crop breeding for faster ecophysiological traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alicia Gómez-Fernández
- Grupo de investigación en Ecología Evolutiva, Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Instituto de Investigación en Cambio Global, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Ismael Aranda
- Instituto de Ciencias Forestales, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain
| | - Rubén Milla
- Grupo de investigación en Ecología Evolutiva, Departamento de Biología y Geología, Física y Química Inorgánica, Instituto de Investigación en Cambio Global, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.
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Liu H, Ye Q, Simpson KJ, Cui E, Xia J. Can evolutionary history predict plant plastic responses to climate change? THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2022; 235:1260-1271. [PMID: 35488493 DOI: 10.1111/nph.18194] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2021] [Accepted: 04/24/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Plant plastic responses are critical to the adaptation and survival of species under climate change, but whether they are constrained by evolutionary history (phylogeny) is largely unclear. Plant leaf traits are key in determining plants' performance in different environments, and if these traits and their variation are phylogenetically dependent, predictions could be made to identify species vulnerable to climate change. We compiled data on three leaf traits (photosynthetic rate, specific leaf area, and leaf nitrogen content) and their variation under four environmental change scenarios (warming, drought, elevated CO2 , or nitrogen addition) for 434 species, from 210 manipulation experiments. We found phylogenetic signal in the three traits but not in their variation under the four scenarios. This indicates that closely related species show similar traits but that their plastic responses could not be predicted from species relatedness under environmental change. Meanwhile, phylogeny weakened the slopes but did not change the directions of conventional pairwise trait relationships, suggesting that co-evolved leaf trait pairs have consistent responses under contrasting environmental conditions. Phylogeny can identify lineages rich in species showing similar traits and predict their relationships under climate change, but the degree of plant phenotypic variation does not vary consistently across evolutionary clades.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Liu
- Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xingke Road 723, Guangzhou, 510650, China
| | - Qing Ye
- Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xingke Road 723, Guangzhou, 510650, China
- College of Life Sciences, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou, 341000, China
- Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), no. 1119, Haibin Road, Nansha District, Guangzhou, 511458, China
| | - Kimberley J Simpson
- Plants, Photosynthesis and Soil, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK
| | - Erqian Cui
- Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
- Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
| | - Jianyang Xia
- Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
- Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
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