Crop domestication is the process of artificially selecting plants to increase their suitability to human requirements: taste, yield, storage, and cultivation practices. There is increasing evidence that crop domestication can profoundly alter interactions among plants, herbivores, and their natural enemies. Overall, little is known about how these interactions are affected by domestication in the geographical ranges where these crops originate, where they are sympatric with the ancestral plant and share the associated arthropod community. In general, domestication consistently has reduced chemical resistance against herbivorous insects, improving herbivore and natural enemy performance on crop plants. More studies are needed to understand how changes in morphology and resistance-related traits arising from domestication may interact with environmental variation to affect species interactions across multiple scales in agroecosystems and natural ecosystems.

Crop Domestication and Its Impact on Naturally Selected Trophic Interactions

Global food demand is expected to nearly double by 2050 due to an increase in the world's population. The Green Revolution has played a key role in the past century by increasing agricultural productivity worldwide, however, limited availability and continued depletion of natural resources such as arable land and water will continue to pose a serious challenge for global food security in the coming decades. High yielding varieties with proven tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, superior nutritional profiles, and the ability to adapt to the changing environment are needed for continued agricultural sustainability. The narrow genetic base of modern cultivars is becoming a major bottleneck for crop improvement efforts and, therefore, the use of crop wild relatives (CWRs) is a promising approach to enhance genetic diversity of cultivated crops. This article provides a review of the efforts to date on the exploration of CWRs as a source of tolerance to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses in four global crops of importance; maize, rice, cotton, and soybean. In addition to the overview of the repertoire and geographical spread of CWRs in each of the respective crops, we have provided a comprehensive discussion on the morphological and/or genetic basis of the traits along with some examples, when available, of the research in the transfer of traits from CWRs to cultivated varieties. The emergence of modern molecular and genomic technologies has not only accelerated the pace of dissecting the genetics underlying the traits found in CWRs, but also enabled rapid and efficient trait transfer and genome manipulation. The potential and promise of these technologies has also been highlighted in this review.

/pdf/wild-relatives-of-maize-rice-cotton-and-soybean-treasure-1p1eg1fn9c.pdf

Wild Relatives of Maize, Rice, Cotton, and Soybean: Treasure Troves for Tolerance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses.

A Return to the Wild: Root Exudates and Food Security.

Crop domestication and selective breeding have altered plant defense mechanisms, influencing insect-plant interactions. A reduction in plant resistance/tolerance against herbivory is generally expected in domesticated species, however, limited efforts have been made to compare inducibility of plant defenses between wild and domesticated genotypes. In the present study, the inducibility of several plant defense mechanisms (e.g. defensive chemicals, trichomes, plant volatiles) were investigated, and the performance and preference of the herbivore Helicoverpa zea were measured in three different tomato genotypes; a) wild tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium L. (accession LA 2093), b) cherry tomato, S. lycopersicum L. var. cerasiforme (accession Matts Wild Cherry), and c) cultivated tomato, S. lycopersicum L. var. Better Boy). Enhanced inducibility of defensive chemicals, trichomes, and plant volatiles in the cultivated tomato, and a higher level of constitutive plant resistance against herbivory in the wild genotype was observed. When comparing the responses of damaged vs. undamaged leaves, the percent reduction in larval growth was higher on damaged leaves from cultivated tomato, suggesting a higher induced resistance compared to other two genotypes. While all tomato genotypes exhibited increased volatile organic compound (VOCs) emissions in response to herbivory, the cultivated variety responded with generally higher levels of VOCs. Differences in VOC patterns may have influenced the ovipositional preferences, as H. zea female moths significantly preferred laying eggs on the cultivated versus the wild tomato genotypes. Selection of traits during domestication and selective breeding could alter allocation of resources, where plants selected for higher yield performance would allocate resources to defense only when attacked.

Induced Plant Defenses Against Herbivory in Cultivated and Wild Tomato

The search for the geographic origins of cultivated plants, and the quest to understand how plant populations evolve under artificial selection, has fascinated anthropologists, archaeologists, botanists, and evolutionary biologists for over a century. In recent times, studies of crop species have garnered increasing attention from the scientific community as concerns mount about the narrowing genetic base of cultivated populations and the increasing dependency of human populations on fewer and fewer crop species and varieties. In addition, because all crop species evolved during a relatively short time scale (<10,000 years) and artificial selection is known to be the main force driving evolutionary change in cultivated populations, some crop species have become important model systems for evolutionary studies (e.g., corn and rice). Darwin’s Harvest is a timely and significant contribution to a growing body of literature focused on understanding the evolutionary history of cultivated plant populations. The book provides a broad sample of current research on a diverse group of crop plants, integrating studies of crops native to South America, North America, Central America, the Fertile Crescent, and Oceania. Example crops represented in this volume have different breeding systems (monoecious, dioecious, hermaphroditic flowers), modes of propagation (vegetative, sexual), economically important components (fruits, roots, stalks), and taxonomic affinities (ten plant families are represented). Darwin’s Harvest is a valuable text for those interested in agricultural history, crop origins, ethnobotany, plant evolution, reproductive biology, systematics, and taxonomy. The book would be an excellent focal point around which to structure an upper-level undergraduate or graduate level seminar in plant evolution or crop evolution. Darwin’s Harvest is organized into four parts: (1) Genetics and Origin of Crops: Evolution and Domestication; (2) Systematics and the Origin of Crops: Phylogenetic and Biogeographic Relations; (3) The Descent of Man: Human History and Crop Evolution; and (4) Variation of Plants Under Selection: Agrodiversity and Germplasm Conservation. The grouping of chapters seems a bit arbitrary as portions of all chapters fit somewhat into each of these categories. Darwin’s Harvest begins with a formidable introduction to plant domestication (Chapter 1), covering the history of crop plant studies and offering a concise summary of the major theories of agricultural origins. The subsequent chapters are complementary in terms of the crops presented, the questions addressed, and the data used in the studies. Darwin’s Harvest ends with a useful appendix entitled “Molecular Marker and Sequencing Methods and Related Terms” by Sarah Ward, which provides thorough and very practical explanations of different types molecular data, their historical development, analyses, and modern applications. The four chapters of the first section of the book (“Genetics and Origin of Crops”) examine the evolution and domestication of sunflower, sugarcane, and corn. In one of the strongest chapters of the book (Chapter 2), Rieseberg and Harter trace the evolution of sunflower, covering in detail the variety of data that has been used to understand sunflower evolution, starting with Heiser’s morphological studies, archaeological data, chloroplast DNA sequences, allozymes, RAPDs, and microsatellites. The third chapter explores sugarcane evolution; this is the first of five chapters in the book that investigate crops that are cultivated for vegetative parts. This chapter focuses on the taxonomy of sugar cane cultivars and its wild relatives, chromosome evolution in Saccharaum, and the role of interspecific hybridization in crop evolution. The last two chapters in this section explore corn evolution, giving equal time to two competing hypotheses of how and where domesticated corn originated. Chapter 4 covers the teosinte hypothesis, which postulates that domesticated corn was derived from wild Zea species (teosintes), specifically, Z. mays ssp. parviglumis populations. Corn has become a model system for evolutionary studies; the authors do a good job describing the importance of corn in identifying an important paradigm in evolution under domestication: that genetic bottlenecks during the domestication process do not affect all loci equally. ChapBOOK REVIEWS

Darwin's Harvest. New Approaches to the Origins, Evolution, and Conservation of Crops

Herbivory significantly impacts the growth and reproduction of plants. Many plants have developed ways to defend against herbivores and one common strategy is to associate with ants. In many ant-plant interactions, ants are known to protect their host. However, in the Neotropical ant-plant genus Triplaris, the benefits provided by associated ants have never been tested. Many Pseudomyrmex spp. ants are obligate inhabitants of Triplaris spp. trees. In this study, Triplaris americana was studied in association with Pseudomyrmex dendroicus, an ant highly specific to its host (it has not been collected from any other species of Triplaris). Ant exclusion experiments were carried out to assess the protective effect of ants. In addi tion, ant behavior was monitored in control plants to study the mechanisms by which ants might confer protection against herbivory. Ant removal led to a more than 15-fold increase in herbivory. Pseudomyrmex dendroicus are active at all times of day and night and aggressively and efficiently remove insect herbivores from their host.

https://jhr.pensoft.net/lib/ajax_srv/article_elements_srv.php?action=download_pdf&item_id=5518

Protection against herbivory in the mutualism between Pseudomyrmex dendroicus (Formicidae) and Triplaris americana (Polygonaceae)

Plant anti-herbivore defenses are known to be affected by life-history evolution, as well as by domestication and breeding in the case of crop species. A suite of plants from the maize genus Zea (Poaceae) and the specialist herbivore Dalbulus maidis (DeLong & Wolcott) (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) were used to test the hypothesis that anti-herbivore defenses are affected by plant life-history evolution and human intervention through domestication and breeding for high yield. The suite of plants included a maize (Zea mays ssp. mays L.) commercial hybrid, a maize landrace, two populations of the annual Balsas teosinte (Z. mays ssp. parviglumis Iltis & Doebley), and perennial teosinte (Z. diploperennis Iltis, Doebley & Guzman). Leaf toughness, pubescence, and oviposition preference were compared among the suite of host plants looking for effects of transitions in life history (i.e., from perennial to annual life cycle), domestication (i.e., from wild annual to domesticated annual), and breeding (i.e., from landrace to hybrid maize) on defense against D. maidis. Results on leaf toughness suggested that the life-history and domestication transitions weakened the plant's resistance to penetration by the mouthparts and ovipositor of D. maidis, whereas results on pubescence suggested that this putative defense was strengthened with the breeding transition, contrary to expectations. Results on oviposition preference of D. maidis coincided with the expectation that life-history and domestication transitions would lead to preference for Balsas teosinte over perennial teosinte, and of landrace maize over Balsas teosinte. Also, a negative correlation suggested that oviposition preference is significantly influenced by leaf toughness. Overall, the results suggested that Zea defenses against the specialist herbivore D. maidis were variably affected by plant life-history evolution, domestication, and breeding, and that chemical defense may play a role in Zea defense against D. maidis because leaf toughness and pubescence only partially explained its host preferences.

Physical leaf defenses – altered by Zea life‐history evolution, domestication, and breeding – mediate oviposition preference of a specialist leafhopper

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Protection against herbivory in the mutualism between Pseudomyrmex dendroicus (Formicidae) and Triplaris americana (Polygonaceae)

Physical leaf defenses – altered by Zea life‐history evolution, domestication, and breeding – mediate oviposition preference of a specialist leafhopper