Importance and Impact of Ecological Approaches to Crop Domestication

Abstract

Domestication is the sign of the beginning of agriculture and it is the outcome of a selection process that leads to increased adaptation of crop plants from wild relatives to mitigate the effect of food security problems. Plant breeding primarily based on domestication to facilitate the introgression of adaptive diversity, providing breeders with new tools for crop improvement through drought, insect, and disease-resistant varieties. In the domestication process, significant alteration in phenological, morphological and genetical leads to the increased adaptation and use of the plants under the strategic and modern plant breeding practices. The transformation of wild species into elite cultivars through domestication entails evolutionary responses in which plant populations adapt to selection. Selection and plant breeding has reduced genetic variation in all crop species because limited number of preferred crop plants selected for further improvements for different desirable traits. Therefore, novel variation can be introduced from wild relatives and variation will be useful in crop improvement by either traditional breeding methods or biotechnology. Domestication syndrome is a group of traits that can arise through human preferences for ease of harvest and growth under human management. Domestication focuses on genetic variation, as well as new genetic variation introduced via mutation or introgression. Domestication has been contributing in overcoming the global food challenges and addressing the problem of yield reduction and its links with pest management. Domestication leads to the development of modern cultivars, which have contributed to the dramatic improvement of yield of the crops for the world. It is now believed that plant domestication was much more complex in evolutionary terms and of wider geographical extent than previously believed. Crop plants have been domesticated over vast areas and not in more restricted geographical areas as the center of origin. Generally, the practice of improving crop production through bringing the wild plants to controlled management plays great roles to alleviate poverty and raise the living standards of the peoples.

Keywords:  Crop; Domestication; Evolution; Ecology; Center of origin; Environment

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-8-04

Publication date: April 30^th 2020