Examining the Shift in Seed-Dispersal Mechanisms During Early Plant Domestication

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Scholarship is reframing the study of plant evolution under cultivation to focus on the effects of complex human harvesting practices (seed predation), increased human population size, and sedentism, while turning away from conscious human selection. Research has pointed out that parallelism in domestication is linked to seed-dispersal mechanisms, but few of these studies look beyond the role of tough rachises in large-grained cereals or non-dehiscent pods in legumes. Gene flow through seed dispersal is one of the most prominent drivers in plant evolution in the wild and appears to have been under early cultivation as well. Hundreds of thousands of plant species have evolved mutualistic bonds with seed dispersers; these evolutionary changes are driven by the selective advantage of strong gene flow and often evolve from a predatory relationship. Additionally, few scholars have discussed the fact that most crop progenitors were endozoochoric dispersed. In order to understand the earliest traits of domestication in these crops, we need to understand seed-dispersal-based mutualism before human intervention. Evolution under cultivation is no different than the evolution of mutualism or anti-herbivory defenses as a response to heavy herbivory in nature and is simply an example of keeping pace with the Red Queen.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Frontiers of Plant Domestication   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23687