Abstract
Chinese cherry [Cerasus pseudocerasus (Lindl.) G.Don] is a commercially important fruit crop in China, but its structure patterns and domestication history remain imprecise. To address these questions, we estimated the genetic structure and domestication history of Chinese cherry using 19 nuclear microsatellite markers and 650 representative accessions (including 118 Cerasus relatives) selected throughout their natural eco-geographical distributions. Our structure analyses detected no genetic contribution from Cerasus relatives to the evolution history of Chinese cherry. A separate genetic structure was detected in wild Chinese cherries and rough geographical structures were observed in cultivated Chinese cherries. One wild (wild Chinese cherry, WC) and two cultivated (cultivated Chinese cherry, CC1 and CC2) genetic clusters were defined. Our approximate Bayesian computation analyses supported an independent domestication history with two domestication events for CC1 and CC2, happening about 3900 and 2200 years ago, respectively. Moderate loss of genetic diversity, over 1000-year domestication bottlenecks and divergent domestication in fruit traits were also detected in cultivated Chinese cherries, which is highly correlated to long-term clonal propagation and different domestication trends and preferences. Our study is the first to comprehensively and systematically investigate the structure patterns and domestication history for Chinese cherry, providing important references for revealing the evolution and domestication history of perennial woody fruit trees.
Highlights
Domestication is a complex evolutionary process in which human activities lead domesticated crops to phenotypically and genetically diverge from their wild ancestors (Michael and Dorian, 2009)
Our aims were to (i) investigate the genetic structure of Chinese cherry at species level, (ii) explore whether Cerasus relatives contribute to the evolution and domestication of Chinese cherry, (iii) estimate the domestication bottlenecks within cultivated Chinese cherry, the number of domestication event(s), and the divergent time between wild and cultivated Chinese cherry accessions, and (iv) clarify whether the fruit and seed traits of cultivated Chinese cherries are significantly associated with the domestication activities
We analyzed a total of 532 Chinese cherry accessions and 118 Cerasus relatives from Longmenshan Fault Zones (LFZ), Southwest China (SWC), Qinling Mountains (QLM), and North and East China (NEC) that represented their mainly geographical distributions in China (Figure 1 and Supplementary Table S1)
Summary
Domestication is a complex evolutionary process in which human activities lead domesticated crops to phenotypically and genetically diverge from their wild ancestors (Michael and Dorian, 2009). Chinese cherry [Cerasus pseudocerasus (Lindl.) G.Don] belongs to the genus Cerasus of the Rosaceae family, and is a hermaphrodite perennial woody fruit crop with high levels of inbreeding rate and moderately long juvenile phase (3–6 years) (Yü and Li, 1986). It is an economically and culturally important fruit crop that has been cultivated for more than 3000 years in China (Yü, 1979; Liu et al, 2008). Crystal-clear fruit appearances, wide adaptability and intensive pest/disease resistance make it an important crop in the rural tourist industry of China (Chen et al, 2016)
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