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DR. DUNCAN VAUGHAN: Welcome to the
seminar on plant domestication.
My name is Duncan Vaughan,
and I have spent much
of my career conducting research on
issues related to the domestication
of plants, particularly
the beans of Asia and rice.
The foundation of human
society is based on food.
It was changing some
unpromising-looking wild plant
species into abundant crops that
allowed societies to develop
and provide today for
global food security.
The photographs of
the top of the slide
show wild rice on a bowl of rice on
the left, and wild wheat on wheat
in the form of bread on the right.
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Let me give you an
overview of the seminar.
In the seminar, I will
introduce a variety of topics
to help explain plant domestication
by asking a series of questions.
At the end of this
seminar, hopefully you
will understand the
nature of domestication
and why particular
plants were domesticated,
where and when plants
were first domesticated.
The basic genetics associated
with domestication,
including crop complexes,
the genetic bottleneck
of domestication, the
domestication syndrome,
selective sweeps, and more.
Also the causes of genetic
variation in crops today,
and how genetic variation for crop
improvement is conserved today.
And finally, how current
trends will likely
affect future
domestication in crops.
