title: Investigation of the bottleneck leading to the domestication of maize.
abstract: Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) is genetically diverse, yet it is also morphologically distinct from its wild relatives. These two observations are somewhat contradictory: the first observation is consistent with a large historical population size for maize, but the latter observation is consistent with strong, diversity-limiting selection during maize domestication. In this study, we sampled sequence diversity, coupled with simulations of the coalescent process, to study the dynamics of a population bottleneck during the domestication of maize. To do this, we determined the DNA sequence of a 1,400-bp region of the Adh1 locus from 19 individuals representing maize, its presumed progenitor (Z. mays ssp. parviglumis), and a more distant relative (Zea luxurians). The sequence data were used to guide coalescent simulations of population bottlenecks associated with domestication. Our study confirms high genetic diversity in maize-maize contains 75% of the variation found in its progenitor and is more diverse than its wild relative, Z. luxurians-but it also suggests that sequence diversity in maize can be explained by a bottleneck of short duration and very small size. For example, the breadth of genetic diversity in maize is consistent with a founding population of only 20 individuals when the domestication event is 10 generations in length.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences and Center for Theoretical and Applied Genetics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08902, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Eyre-Walker
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Gaut
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hilton
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Gaut
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D003198:Computer Simulation; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000737:chemistry; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D008957:Models, Genetic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D006109:Poaceae / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D003313:Zea mays / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D018744:DNA, Plant; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase