Eggplant origins: Out of Africa, into the Orient

Abstract

The eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), also known as aubergine or brinjal, has been cultivated for centuries in the Old World and is currently a crop species of global importance. Despite this, hypotheses of eggplant evolution have been fraught with controversy. Previous conclusions have relied solely on morphological characters or have been based on insufficient taxonomic sampling, leading to conflicting opinions of the number of species, phylogenetic relationships, and patterns of domestication in a group of related taxa termed the S. melongena complex. The S. melongena complex shows a series of morphological intermediates from small-fruited spiny plants to large-fruited non-spiny plants. We use DNA sequence data to show that eggplants arose in Africa and were dispersed throughout the Middle East to Asia. Solanum linnaeanum, a wild species not previously associated with eggplant evolution, is a member of the S. melongena complex. These data provide the most comprehensive evidence to date for the evolution of the cultivated eggplant.

The Population Structure and Diversity of Eggplant from Asia and the Mediterranean Basin

“…The picture is rather different for the “Oriental” gene pool (figure 6), in which a trend of clustering was detected and most of the genotypes from the Indian, Indo-Chinese and Indonesian regions grouped together and separately from the Chinese ones. Recent studies highlight that the modern eggplant evolved from the species S. insanum [2], and it has been generally assumed that it was domesticated in Indian subcontinent[3], ,possibly in Rajasthan region [5]. The distinct genetic content of Chinese germplasm uncovered in the present analysis supports the alternate idea proposed by Wang et al [6], Ali et al [20] and Meyer et al [4], that a secondary site of domestication also developed in China.…”

“…Unlike all of the latter, eggplant is an Old World species. Lester et al [1] have suggested that the eggplant’s pre-domestication ancestor was the subtropical species S. incanum , a native of north Africa and West Asia which is being used in eggplant breeding programs as a source of variation for phenolics content and resistance to drought [2]; others have postulated that the ancestor was rather S. undatum [3], [4]. However, recent morphological and molecular work has shown that species-level differences exist between S. incanum and S. melongena while, on the basis of a new nomenclature, S. undatum and S.cumingii have been reclassified as S. insanum .…”

Coding SNPs analysis highlights genetic relationships and evolution pattern in eggplant complexes

“…macrocarpon ; otherwise Sakata and Lester [65], in a study based on chloroplast DNA RFLPs, and Vorontosva et al [23] using ITS, waxy and trnT-F regions sequences obtained opposite results. Interestingly, Furini and Wunder [66] using AFLPs as well as Levin et al [54], Weese and Bohs [53] and Särkinen et al [55] using several nuclear and plastid DNA sequences found that S . aethiopicum and S .…”

Characterization of interspecific hybrids and first backcross generations from crosses between two cultivated eggplants (Solanum melongena and S. aethiopicum Kumba group) and implications for eggplant breeding

“…S. melongena also consists of four groups, which are labeled E-H (Lester and Hasan 1991). Groups E, F, and G correspond to wild and weedy forms (E and F) and primitive cultivars with small fruits (G) from India and Central Asia (E) and South East Asia (F and G), while the group H consists of large-fruited (10-20 cm long and 7-12 cm in diameter) landraces and modern cultivars known and cultivated worldwide (Lester and Hasan 1991;Daunay 2008;Weese and Bohs 2010). Since group H is the economically relevant eggplant group, references to S. melongena in the scientific literature (and also in this paper) normally correspond with group H unless otherwise specified.…”