Abstract
One of the world’s most important crops, barley, was domesticated in the Near East around 11,000 years ago. Barley is a highly resilient crop, able to grown in varied and marginal environments, such as in regions of high altitude and latitude. Archaeobotanical evidence shows that barley had spread throughout Eurasia by 2,000 BC. To further elucidate the routes by which barley cultivation was spread through Eurasia, simple sequence repeat (SSR) analysis was used to determine genetic diversity and population structure in three extant barley taxa: domesticated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare), wild barley (H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum) and a six-rowed brittle rachis form (H. vulgare subsp. vulgare f. agriocrithon (Åberg) Bowd.). Analysis of data using the Bayesian clustering algorithm InStruct suggests a model with three ancestral genepools, which captures a major split in the data, with substantial additional resolution provided under a model with eight genepools. Our results indicate that H. vulgare subsp. vulgare f. agriocrithon accessions and Tibetan Plateau H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum are closely related to the H. vulgare subsp. vulgare in their vicinity, and are therefore likely to be feral derivatives of H. vulgare subsp. vulgare. Under the eight genepool model, cultivated barley is split into six ancestral genepools, each of which has a distinct distribution through Eurasia, along with distinct morphological features and flowering time phenotypes. The distribution of these genepools and their phenotypic characteristics is discussed together with archaeological evidence for the spread of barley eastwards across Eurasia.
Highlights
This paper presents a study of the prehistoric spread of domesticated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare) across Eurasia, using simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker analysis
In the K = 8 model, the majority of spontaneum accessions split into two genepools (K8_1 and K8_2), which are distinct from the six vulgare genepools, showing a broad east-west division, with K8_1 predominating in the east and K8_2 in the west (Fig 5B); this mirrors the results reported by a number of authors using different genetic markers [31, 32, 62]
This study has shown that cultivated barley spread through Eurasia via several different routes, which were most likely separated in both time and space
Summary
This paper presents a study of the prehistoric spread of domesticated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare) across Eurasia, using SSR marker analysis. This paper presents a study of the prehistoric spread of domesticated barley Vulgare) across Eurasia, using SSR marker analysis. The aims of this study are to: (1). Genetic analysis of the spread of barley through Eurasia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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