About this Research Topic

Background

Domestication has been a unique and the most intense form of biological evolution leading to the establishment and propagation of newly domesticated species. Additionally, it has led to a continuous evolution in those species which had already been cultivated. Domestication has provided additional avenues of bringing novel plant and animal species into human cultivation adding new food, forage, ornamental, and companion species to our usage in the past 12000 years. Among all living organisms, the crop plants in particular have benefitted the most from the evolutionary progression primarily associated with domestication. Domestication of crop plants has been largely influenced by their economic and cultural importance for humans and the progression and subsequent evolution of a crop plant are dictated by the genetic architecture of the plant, its ecology, nature of propagation, and breeding behavior.

Plant domestication brings extensive evolutionary changes in the genetic architecture of crop plants that augment the fitness of a new plant species under human management, simultaneously decreasing its fitness in the wild. Human interference in domestication and evolution of a species can make it completely dependent on humans for its survival. Domestication spans a wide range of events in the process of evolution of crop species, including the initiation of evolutionary divergence from its wild ancestral species and subsequent changes in its appearance and ecology, accompanied by evolution of new varieties including improvement in plant architecture, adaptation, economic yield, resistance levels or quality. Nonetheless, its counterparts still back in the wild also do not become irrelevant and time and again contribute to the further evolution of the domesticated species by donating their useful chromosome segments through natural and planned introgression, offering opportunities for neo-domestication. Therefore, understanding evolutionary adaptation of a crop species requires an understanding of the ecology of their wild ancestors and the selective pressures that the farmers exerted when they actually started domestication and shaping agricultural environments.

A quest has been ongoing to identify the key genes and their functions which render the domesticated species more fit in the agricultural environments as compared to their wild counterparts. Accordingly, the domesticated species have been a major subject of detailed molecular studies over the past couple of decades in order to identify domestication-related genes through genome-wide association studies (GWAS), candidate gene studies, quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping and cloning, and whole-genome sequencing and resequencing. Simultaneously, molecular cytogenetic tools including in situ hybridization and high-resolution mapping have been deployed towards identification and characterization of the alien chromosome segments or genes that might have introgressed and could have been successful in increasing the economic value of a crop. Likewise, characterization studies of the mutations leading to domestication have been helpful in indicating the types of mutations as well as the functions of genes involved in the generation of domestication-related traits.

This Research Topic aims at bringing together all recent studies conducted towards understanding the evolutionary changes of the chromosome structure and function within different taxa and the lineages of crop plants including cereals, oilseeds, food legumes and minor millets rendering them more useful to human beings. Deployment of modern techniques such as molecular cytogenetics, genomics, and molecular breeding are widely used today in evolutionary cytogenetic studies in addition to the origin and evolution of karyotypes, heterochromatin, and spatial chromosome organization. This Research Topic welcomes the submission of Original Research manuscripts, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Methods, and Opinions aiming to address recent development in global efforts towards ‘Genetics of domestication and diversification towards evolution of crop plants’ by way of but not limited to:
1. Evolutionary and comparative cytogenetics of crop plants
2. New reports on domestication and neo-domestication with proven data on their effective utilization
3. Plant genetic resources, their characterization, management, and utilization for successful gene introgression for key traits
4. Trait discovery through genetics, genomics, and modern biotechnological interventions
5. Significant but previously unknown chromosome diversity within different groups proven by a combination of methods
6. Useful introgressions and cryptic translocations proven by contemporary cytogenetic techniques
7. Modern advances in the field of image acquisition and analysis towards ecology and adaptation of crop plants
8. Genome sequencing of wild species and unreported taxa
9. Application of evolutionary approaches to the management of biotic and abiotic interactions
10. Mutation characterization studies by a combination of methods

The Topic will cover a wide range of crops including cereals, oilseeds, food legumes, and minor millets. However, horticultural and commercial crops are beyond the scope of this Research Topic and may be considered in a separate volume.

Keywords: Crop plants, Cereals, Chromosomes, Comparative cytogenetics, Evolution, Food legumes, Minor millets, Molecular Cytogenetics, Mutation, Oilseeds, Pulses

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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