The nature of selection during plant domestication

Purugganan, Michael D.
Fuller, Dorian Q.

¹Department of Biology and Centre for Genomics and Systems Biology, 100 Washington Square East, New York University, New York 10003, USA.
²Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK.

Published online 11 February 2009.

We thank K. Olsen and S. Colledge for critical reading of the manuscript. Work in the Purugganan laboratory is funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program.

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Correspondence should be addressed to M.D.P. ([email protected]).

Nature 457(7231):p 843-848, February 12, 2009. | DOI: 10.1038/nature07895

Plant domestication is an outstanding example of plant-animal co-evolution and is a far richer model for studying evolution than is generally appreciated. There have been numerous studies to identify genes associated with domestication, and archaeological work has provided a clear understanding of the dynamics of human cultivation practices during the Neolithic period. Together, these have provided a better understanding of the selective pressures that accompany crop domestication, and they demonstrate that a synthesis from the twin vantage points of genetics and archaeology can expand our understanding of the nature of evolutionary selection that accompanies domestication.