Abstract Detail

Symposium: Speaking of Food: connecting basic and applied science

Gross, Briana [1].

Apple domestication genetics: Genetic diversity and hybridization in the crop and its wild relatives.

Patterns of genetic diversity in domesticated plants are influenced by a combination of deterministic and stochastic evolutionary processes; these processes are embodied by artificial selection and genetic bottlenecks. Gene flow between domesticated plants and their wild relatives can interact with both selection and drift, providing advantageous traits for selection and potentially increasing the genetic diversity of a domesticated lineage. This presentation explores the genetic diversity of domesticated and wild apples (Malus sp.), as well as hybridization between them. Genetic diversity of domesticated apple is quite high relative to its closest wild relatives, and this is true even for apple varieties developed within the last 50 years. This high genetic diversity, however, does not seem to be due to gene flow from wild apple species (in fact, evidence suggests more gene flow in the opposite direction). These results from apple are placed in the broader context of perennial plant domestication and how it differs from our current understanding of annual plant domestication.

Broader Impacts:

1 - Univerisy of Minnesota Duluth, Department of Biology, 207 Swenson Science Buildin, 1035 Kirby Drive, Duluth, MN, 55812, USA

Keywords:
Domestication
apple
hybridization
genetic diversity.

Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: SY06
Location: Grand Ballroom A/Riverside Hilton
Date: Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
Time: 9:45 AM
Number: SY06003
Abstract ID:438
Candidate for Awards:None