Review Article

Plant Domestication and Resistance to Herbivory

Figure 1

An example of cotton (Gossypium) evolution under human selection and contemporary breeding programs. The modern “crop” plants are the outcome of recurrent selection on wild form undergoing through early cultigens and landraces. In conventional and molecular breeding programs, it is possible to distinguish between primary, secondary, and tertiary gene pools and exchange of hereditary material. Each primary gene pool comprises one domesticated species together with those species with which it readily cross-breeds. The secondary gene pool includes species that can be cross-bred only with difficulty. The tertiary gene pool comprises those species which can be cross-bred only by using advanced techniques such as embryo rescue. (Courtesy Jonathan F. Wendel, ISU). The horizontal bar shows the reduction in genetic diversity along with domestication steps with the help of dark to lighter shades.
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