Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 28;109(9):3412-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1121411109. Epub 2012 Feb 14.
Climate change is a major environmental stress threatening biodiversity and human civilization. The best hope to secure staple food for humans and animal feed by future crop improvement depends on wild progenitors. We examined 10 wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides Koern.) populations and 10 wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum K. Koch) populations in Israel, sampling them in 1980 and again in 2008, and performed phenotypic and genotypic analyses on the collected samples. We witnessed the profound adaptive changes of these wild cereals in Israel over the last 28 y in flowering time and simple sequence repeat allelic turnover. The revealed evolutionary changes imply unrealized risks present in genetic resources for crop improvement and human food production.
气候变化是威胁生物多样性和人类文明的主要环境压力。未来通过作物改良来保障人类主食和动物饲料的最佳希望依赖于野生祖先。我们在以色列调查了 10 个野生二粒小麦(Triticum dicoccoides Koern.)群体和 10 个野生大麦(Hordeum spontaneum K. Koch)群体,1980 年采样,2008 年再次采样,并对采集的样本进行了表型和基因型分析。我们观察到这些野生谷物在过去 28 年里在以色列的开花时间和简单重复序列等位基因更替方面发生了深刻的适应性变化。所揭示的进化变化意味着遗传资源改良和人类粮食生产中存在尚未实现的风险。