Molecular Evidence for Two Domestication Events in the Pea Crop.

Pea, one of the founder crops from the Near East, has two wild species: subsp. , with a wide distribution centered in the Mediterranean, and which is restricted to Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Using genome wide analysis of 11,343 polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on a set of wild (134) and (20) and 74 domesticated accessions (64 landraces and 10 ), we demonstrated that domesticated and the Ethiopian pea () were derived from different genepools. Therefore, pea has at least two domestication events. The analysis does not support a hybrid origin of , which was likely introduced into Ethiopia and Yemen followed by eco-geographic adaptation. Both and share traits that are typical of domestication, such as non-dormant seeds. Non-dormant seeds were also found in several wild accessions which could be the result of crop to wild introgression or natural variation that may have been present during pea domestication. A sub-group of overlaps with landraces. This may be a consequence of bidirectional gene-flow or may suggest that this group of is the closest extant wild relative of .