GrainDomestication

Question 1

Who was the guest lecturer?

Answer 1

Dr. Ken Marr

Question 2

Trends in plant domestication (Heiser, 1988)

Answer 2

• Often Occurred by Unconscious selection
• Loss of dispersal
• Even and rapid seed germination, no dormancy
• Larger propagules or other organ selected for harves
• Simultaneous ripening
• Colour changes in fruit or seed, religious significance?
• Loss of bitter or toxic properties
• Wide range of variation in appearance of organ harvested

Question 3

What is a true grain?

Answer 3

• Fruit of the grass family

Question 4

How many species of wild grass were harvested worldwide (originally?)

Answer 4

• 100’s of species

Question 5

How many of the originally harvested species of wild grass were domesticated?

Answer 5

• only 34

Question 6

When were wild grasses originally harvested?

Answer 6

• possibly as early as 14,500 years bp

Question 7

Why were certain wild grasses selected by humans for domestication? (guns, germs, and steel, jared diamond) (eg barley and what the only 2 of 23 grasses)

Answer 7

• in ‘fertile crescent’ to be domesticated
• Large seeds (but not all domesticated grasses have large seeds)
• Palatable

Question 8

Why were the other 21 of 23 grasses not selected?

Answer 8

• Smaller (but not all domesticated grasses have large seeds)
• Lower abundance
• Perennial (vs. annual, these evolve more quickly)

Question 9

Where and when was corn domesticated?

Answer 9

• Southern upland Mexico
• 5000-3400 BC
• Genetic evidence indicates a single location, Central US
• Different varieties maintained by planting different cultivars apart from each other

Question 10

Corn, migration in 2 directions

Answer 10

• Mexico to American SW, then to E US and Canada 200 AD earliest evidence in E US
• Lowlands of Mexico to Guatemala then to S American lowlands and finally Andes

Question 11

When was rapid increase in consumption of corn? Evidence?

Answer 11

• circa year 800
• C13:C12 in bone collagen
• C has 2 stable isotopes, C12 and C13
• corn sequesters more C13 than other plant foods

Question 12

India temple carvings of corn controversy

Answer 12

• 12-13th century carvings thought to be pre Columbian diffusion, 1989
• Rebutted, 1993, thought to be carvings of imaginary fruit bearing pearls (Muktaphala)

Question 13

Ancestry of corn

Answer 13

• Controversial
• No wild plant has femal inflorescence that resembles domesticated corn
• not clear why corn was domesticated (several wild species resemble corn vegetatively, but no corn ‘ear’)
• Genetic evidence shows teosinte, a wild annual is the closest relative

Question 14

Closest wild relative of corn

Answer 14

Teosinte, wild annual

- Genetic evidence

Question 15

Global importance of corn (7 reasons)

Answer 15

• grow in areas too dry for rice and too wet for wheat
• few plants produce as much carbs, sugar, and fat in such a short growing season
• 99 million acres grown in US, 2013 (2x amount in 1969)
• Significant animal feed, esp. in early Europe
• Alcohol, chichi, bourbon
• Spread coincides w/ population increase in several parts of old world (cause and effect?)
• Altered harvest regarding fungal disease (text book)

Question 16

Cause and effect of corn spread coinciding with population increase in several parts of old world

Answer 16

• Europe, late 1600’s, increasing importance, contributed to pop. increase
• eg. polenta, staple of Italy peasants by 1780’s
• Southern China, mid 1500’s, late 1700’s corn was primary food crop SW China mountains, esp. important as population expanded in lowlands and people had to subsist in the mountains, early 1900’s discovered waxy/glutinous corn in China

Question 17

The collapse of Mayan culture around 900AD possibly linked to what?

Answer 17

• Maize mosaic virus
• Carried by an insect
• Stunts plant growth
• No ‘ears’

Question 18

How many cultivars of rice in 1962? How many in 1997?

Answer 18

• 67,000 in 1962

- 120,000 in 1997

Question 19

Oryza sativa, where was it domesicated?

Answer 19

• Possibly in both China (Japonica type) and India (Indica type)

Question 20

Japonica rice

Answer 20

• China

- short grain, sticky

Question 21

Indica rice

Answer 21

• India

- longer grain, drier when cooked

Question 22

Which rice is older, indica or japonica?

Answer 22

• Text states indica

- more recent evidence states japonica in china circa 9000 years BP

Question 23

Spread of rice related to change of what?

Answer 23

• Climate

- abundance of fruit and nut bearing deciduous trees decreased (pollen record)

Question 24

Archeological sites and transition from wild rice to domesticated

Answer 24

• grains same size, so difficult to discern transition to domesticate
• Shattering (wild) vs. non-shattering cannot be discerned from remains
• Wild and domesticated phytoliths have different morphologies, revealed that domestication at beginning of Holocene

Question 25

Phytolith

Answer 25

- crystals of silicon dioxide that preserve - found on rices - Different morphology dependent on wild or domesticated rice

Question 26

When did rice enter Europe, and how?

Answer 26

- Rice in Europe by 200 BC | - Greece by Arab traders and Alexander the Great's invasion

Question 27

When did rice enter Japan?

Answer 27

- 3000 years BP

Question 28

Name 2 types of diversity of rice?

Answer 28

- Paddy and upland rice

Question 29

Sticky rice

Answer 29

- Single gene difference changes properties of starch: opaque when dry, sticky when heated

Question 30

Why was sticky rice selected?

Answer 30

- In area grown it required shorter growing season than non-glutinous rice (at least prior to arrival of new cultivars)

Question 31

Where is sticky rice favoured?

Answer 31

- SE Asia as a staple, broader use in East Asia for celebrations/rituals

Question 32

What is a story in China about where rice came from?

Answer 32

- Inside a rock accessed with a rats tail

Question 33

Wild Rice in America

Answer 33

- Zizania palustris - Great Lakes region, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan - Long harvested by FN - Unusual as a recent domesticate - Managed and unmanaged stands - Now cultivated in California and Minnesota

Question 34

American wild rice, FN attitudes towards managing?

Answer 34

- It is a sacred gift that will always be provided, and cultivation is not appropriate - Other FN didn't share the above belief and actively managed

Question 35

Domestication of American wild rice

Answer 35

- Unusual as recent domesticate | - selection for non-shattering, shattering is the dominant allele

Question 36

African rice, domesticated where and when

Answer 36

- Oryza glaberrima - Mali, Africa circa 3500 years BP - Recently discovered growing in Suriname - Difficult to process and lower yield - Matures in 3 months

Question 37

When was African rice brought to America and how?

Answer 37

- Brought to new world in 1600's during slave trade