The genomics of domestication special issue editorial

Abstract

Domestication has been of major interest to biologists for centuries, whether for creating new plants and animal types or more formally exploring the principles of evolution. Such studies have long used combinations of phenotypic and genetic evidence. Recently, the advent of a large number of genomes and genomic tools across a wide array of domesticated plant and animal species has reinvigorated the study of domestication. These genomic data, which can be easily generated for nearly any species, often provide great insight with or without a reference et al., 2018). These data show how quickly it is possible to alter diversity within a species, and how much genetic loss in domestic species can be accounted for by recent commercial breeding, a phenomenon common to animals and plants (Taberlet et al., 2008). Further, Allaby et al. (2018) use a time series of archeological sequence data from three species (barley, maize, and sorghum) to explore the genetic bottleneck associated with domestication. In each of these species, bottlenecks appear to be quite weak early in the domestication process, suggesting that even when single domestication events occurred, populations were not as small as originally thought. These data combine to give an unprecedented time series of material to see how domestication occurred in real time and are providing new insights, suggesting, for example, that the "domestication bottleneck paradigm may not be as universal as once thought." This has been shown most recently in goats, where a "mosaic" of events appears to be the most likely scenario in goat domestication (Daly et al., 2018).The third section concerns introgression between wild and domestic populations

The 4 D’s of Pellagra and Progress

“…[228][229][230][231] Increasing fertility and sexual selection for not only physical but behavioural, cognitive and language prowess as secondary 'ornaments' is marked with many X-linked genes involved with both fertility and cognition. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84]232 Pro-growth and pro-fertility genes, some useful when diet was poor and infection rates were high, evolved late and now are showing up as 'antagonistic pleiotropic' at-risk genes for lateonset cancerous and neurodegenerative disease often with a link to NAD metabolism, for instance, through impaired DNA repair mechanisms. [21][22][23]...…”

“…Other species are domesticated by others, famous examples include leaf-cutter ants that farm fungi and, in co-evolutions, become dependent on each other’s reproduction, altering genomes and building niche-constructed environments. 4-14 However, no plausible agent (some imagine supernatural forces) domesticated us (a fact that stymied Darwin) – so how did we auto-domesticate and why? We argue that a push down the food chain, forced by climate change and over-hunting of megafauna, began an unconscious selection of domesticates that merged into conscious selection, experimentation and domestication of plant, animal and even microbial domesticates pulled by higher reproductive rates of ourselves on a higher plant-based diet as well as themselves.…”

“…228-231 Increasing fertility and sexual selection for not only physical but behavioural, cognitive and language prowess as secondary ‘ornaments’ is marked with many X-linked genes involved with both fertility and cognition. 1-20,16-64,66-84,232 Pro-growth and pro-fertility genes, some useful when diet was poor and infection rates were high, evolved late and now are showing up as ‘antagonistic pleiotropic’ at-risk genes for late-onset cancerous and neurodegenerative disease often with a link to NAD metabolism, for instance, through impaired DNA repair mechanisms. 21-34,36-49,178,199,200,202,227,233-244 DNA methylation also played a part in recent human evolution compatible with changes in diet and effects on the methylome.…”

Differences in the genomic diversity, structure, and inbreeding patterns in wild and managed populations of Agave potatorum Zucc. used in the production of Tobalá mezcal in Southern Mexico

“…Recently several studies have focused on domestication as a model for understanding the evolutionary processes [31,[36][37][38]. Under this model and given the ecological, cultural, and economic importance of A. potatorum, we consider it is vital to understand how the management of this species is carried out in its distribution area (in the states of Oaxaca and Puebla, Mexico).…”