Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Mar 24;11(3):e0152455.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152455. eCollection 2016.

Evidence of a Strong Domestication Bottleneck in the Recently Cultivated New Zealand Endemic Root Crop, Arthropodium cirratum (Asparagaceae)

Lara D Shepherd  1   2   3 , Peter J de Lange  4 , Simon Cox  3 , Patricia A McLenachan  3 , Nick R Roskruge  5 , Peter J Lockhart  3
Affiliations

Evidence of a Strong Domestication Bottleneck in the Recently Cultivated New Zealand Endemic Root Crop, Arthropodium cirratum (Asparagaceae)

Lara D Shepherd et al. PLoS One. .

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.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Geographic distribution of chloroplast haplotypes in Arthropodium cirratum and A. bifurcatum, based on alignment 1.
Each individual sample is represented by a single coloured circle. The numbers in brackets are the sites’ identifying number; see S1 Table for more details. For A. cirratum, sites 1–47 are believed to be naturally occurring and sites 48–58 derive from translocations. The position of 38°S, an important biogeographic boundary in New Zealand, is indicated. Basemap supplied by Kahuroa.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Median-joining haplotype network for the Arthropodium cirratum and A. bifurcatum chloroplast haplotypes.
The size of each circle is proportional to haplotype frequency. Solid black circles correspond to missing intermediate haplotypes. The position of the root, where the outgroup A. candidum joins the network, is indicated. The number of mutational changes characterising each branch is shown.
Fig 3
Fig 3. The distribution of the Arthropodium cirratum SAMOVA clusters for K = 6.
Basemap supplied by Kahuroa.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Diamond J. Evolution, consequences and future of plant and animal domestication. Nature. 2002; 418: 700–707. 10.1038/nature01019 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zeder MA. Core questions in domestication research. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015; 112: 3191–3198. 10.1073/pnas.1501711112 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Larson G, Piperno DR, Allaby RG, Purugganan MD, Andersson L, Arroyo-Kalin M et al. Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014; 111: 6139–6146. 10.1073/pnas.1323964111 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Meyer RS, DuVal AE, Jensen HR. Patterns and processes in crop domestication: An historical review and quantitative analysis of 203 global food crops. New Phytol. 2012; 196: 29–48. 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2012.04253.x - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tanksley SD, McCouch SR. Seed banks and molecular maps: unlocking genetic potential from the wild. Science. 1997; 277: 1063–1666. 10.1126/science.277.5329.1063 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources