Cereal progenitors differ in stand harvest characteristics from related wild grasses
Preece, Catherine (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Clamp, Natalie F. (University of Sheffield. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences)
Warham, Gemma (University of Sheffield. Department of Archaeology)
Charles, Michael (University of Oxford. Institute of Archaeology)
Rees, Mark (University of Sheffield. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences)
Jones, Glynis (University of Sheffield. Department of Archaeology)
Osborne, Colin P. (University of Sheffield. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences)

Data:	2018
Resum:	1. The domestication of crops in the Fertile Crescent began approximately 10,000 years ago indicating a change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary, agriculture-based existence. The exploitation of wild plants changed during this transition, such that a small number of crops were domesticated from the broader range of species gathered from the wild. However, the reasons for this change are unclear. 2. Previous studies have shown unexpectedly that crop progenitors are not consistently higher yielding than related wild grass species, when growing without competition. In this study, we replicate more closely natural competition within wild stands, using two greenhouse experiments to investigate whether cereal progenitors exhibit a greater seed yield per unit area than related wild species that were not domesticated. 3. Stands of cereal progenitors do not provide a greater total seed yield per unit ground area than related wild species, but these crop progenitors do have greater reproductive efficiency than closely related wild species, with nearly twice the harvest index (the ratio of harvested seeds to total shoot dry mass). 4. These differences arise because the progenitors have greater seed yield per tiller than closely related wild species, due to larger individual seed size but no reduction in seed number per tiller. The harvest characteristics of cereal progenitors may have made them a more attractive prospect than closely related wild species for the early cultivators who first planted these species, or could suggest an ecological filtering mechanism. 5. Synthesis. Overall, we show that the maintenance of a high harvest index under competition, the packaging of seed in large tillers, and large seeds, consistently distinguish crop progenitors from closely related wild grass species. However, the archaeological significance of these findings remains unclear, since a number of more distantly related species, including wild oats, have an equally high or higher harvest index and yield than some of the progenitor species. Domestication of the earliest cereal crops from the pool of wild species available cannot therefore be explained solely by species differences in yield and harvest characteristics, and must also consider other plant traits.
Ajuts:	European Commission 269830
Nota:	ALTRES AJUTS: NE/H022716/1
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Competition ; Domestication ; Fertile crescent ; Harvest traits ; Origins of agriculture ; Plant development and life-history traits ; Seed size ; Yield
Publicat a:	Journal of ecology, Vol. 106 Núm. 3 (may 2018) , p. 1286-1297, ISSN 0022-0477

DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.12905
PMID: 29780174

12 p, 774.3 KB

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