Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
Rachel Meyer, Michael Purugganan and colleagues published a paper that is featured on the cover of this month's Nature Genetics,
"Domestication history and geographical adaptation inferred from a SNP map of African rice."
In it, they investigate the rice species native to Africa that some farmers grow in high salinity areas. Using whole genome resequencing, they find evidence of a population bottleneck beginning 13,000 years ago, and find regions of the genome under selection that may play a critical role in salt tolerance. Read the full article here.
The issue also features a related editorial, "Cereal Genetics for Human Society": "Economic and anthropological botany is not just scholarship; rather, like sharing seeds, the study of plants and society is a strategy for our survival. Adding genomics to this discipline provides a shared language and mechanisms to implement this strategy to build agricultural security for future societies."
Congratulations!
To read the editorial, please click here. For full citation, please see here.