How eggplants became Asian: genomes and elephants tell the story
8/28/2018 01:00:00 PM
The evolutionary context of the eggplant was until recently very poorly known. Historical documents and genetic data have shown that the eggplant was first domesticated in Asia, but most of its wild relatives are from Africa. Researchers from the Natural History Museums of London (NHM) and Finland (University of Helsinki) managed to obtain the first well-supported hypothesis on the origin of the eggplant and its direct relatives.
In a study published in the American Journal of Botany, researchers from the Natural History Museum of London (NHM) and the Finnish museum of natural history, University of Helsinki, have sequenced the plastomes of the eggplant and of 22 species directly related to the eggplant. By comparing the plastome DNA sequences, they hoped to reveal the evolutionary history of the eggplant and its wild relatives. The team obtained a well-supported hypothesis on the origin of the eggplant and its wild relatives, and showed how a single event gave rise to two lineages, one comprising an African group of species and the other the wild progenitor of the domesticated eggplant.
Read more at
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2018/08/how-eggplants-became-asian-genomes-and.html#EmlOZf2t0eQpIOgp.99
