Yam genomics supports West Africa as a major cradle of crop domestication

2019/05/02 by Nora Scarcelli, Philippe Cubry, Roland Akakpo +14 · 3 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Social Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Chromosomal and Genetic Variations

paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw1947

openalex publication_date 2019/05/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

), a key crop in early African agriculture. Using whole-genome resequencing and statistical models, we show that cultivated yam was domesticated from a forest species. We infer that the expansion of African yam agriculture started in the Niger River basin. This result, alongside with the origins of African rice and pearl millet, supports the hypothesis that the vicinity of the Niger River was a major cradle of African agriculture.

Citations

• The Origins of Plant Cultivation and Domestication in the New World Tropics
• ESTIMATINGF-STATISTICS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF POPULATION STRUCTURE
• Origin and phylogeny of Guinea yams as revealed by RFLP analysis of chloroplast DNA and nuclear ribosomal DNA
• SweeD: Likelihood-Based Detection of Selective Sweeps in Thousands of Genomes
• Cattle Before Crops: The Beginnings of Food Production in Africa
• The Molecular Genetics of Crop Domestication
• The Rise and Fall of African Rice Cultivation Revealed by Analysis of 246 New Genomes

Cited by

• Phylogeographic analysis of the Bantu language expansion supports a rainforest route
• Making the invisible visible: tracing the origins of plants in West African cuisine through archaeobotanical and organic residue analysis
• Niger River [wikipedia]