Abstract
We use chloroplast DNA sequencing to examine aspects of the pre-European Māori cultivation of an endemic New Zealand root crop, Arthropodium cirratum (rengarenga). Researching the early stages of domestication is not possible for the majority of crops, because their cultivation began many thousands of years ago and/or they have been substantially altered by modern breeding methods. We found high levels of genetic variation and structuring characterised the natural distribution of A. cirratum, while the translocated populations only retained low levels of this diversity, indicating a strong bottleneck even at the early stages of this species’ cultivation. The high structuring detected at four chloroplast loci within the natural A. cirratum range enabled the putative source(s) of the translocated populations to be identified as most likely located in the eastern Bay of Plenty/East Cape region. The high structuring within A. cirratum also has implications for the conservation of genetic diversity within this species, which has undergone recent declines in both its natural and translocated ranges.
Highlights
The emergence of agriculture was one of the most important developments in human history and lead to significant cultural and environmental changes [1]
Arthropodium cirratum showed much greater diversity with 29 haplotypes recorded across the four loci, including haplotype A
The two A. candidum sequences were identical to each other and joined the A. cirratum/A. bifurcatum network at an undetected intermediate haplotype most closely related to haplotypes E and G
Summary
The emergence of agriculture was one of the most important developments in human history and lead to significant cultural and environmental changes [1]. There are a diversity of definitions for domestication but here we follow Zeder’s definition [2] where it is considered a sustained mutualistic relationship in which one organism influences the reproduction and care of another organism in order to secure a more predictable supply of a resource of interest. Given the importance of domestication it is unsurprising that a considerable amount of research has investigated the processes involved in domestications. Of particular interest has been where, PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0152455. A Strong Domestication Bottleneck in a Recently Cultivated Root Crop Of particular interest has been where, PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0152455 March 24, 2016
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