Rice is China's Gift After All: The DNA Says So

Japonica and indica, two rice strains, apparently had been duking it out as to which came first and from where. Were they both from one single origin? Or had each developed separately in different places. Gene researchers published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences but fortunately I stumbled across this via Futurity.

It seems they both share some of the glory, but derive from one common ancestor in China. The world today benefits from about 10,000 varieties of rice, incidentally.

"As rice was brought in from China to India by traders and migrant farmers, it likely hybridized extensively with local wild rice,” explains Michael Purugganan, professor of genomics and biology at New York University and one of the study’s co-authors. “So domesticated rice that we may have once thought originated in India actually has its beginnings in China.”

Researchers also examined the phylogeny of domesticated rice by re-sequencing 630 gene fragments on selected chromosomes from a diverse set of wild and domesticated rice varieties. Using new modeling techniques, which had previously been used to look at genomic data in human evolution, those results also show that the gene sequence data is more consistent with a single origin of rice.

Using a molecular clock to see when rice evolved, the researchers pinpointed the origin of rice at possibly 8,200 years ago, while japonica and indica split apart from each other about 3,900 years ago, dates consistent with archaeological studies.

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence in the last decade for rice domestication in the Yangtze Valley beginning approximately 8,000 to 9,000 years ago while domestication of rice in the India’s Ganges region was around about 4,000 years ago."

( Chinese Rice Terraces, Guangxi, via Pictures of China.)

 

Comments

[Baby gift baskets]

hich had previously been used to look at genomic data in human evolution, those results also show that the gene sequence data is more consistent with a single origin of rice.

[Gift baskets]

hich had previously been used to look at genomic data in human evolution, those results also show that the gene sequence data is more consistent with a single origin of rice.

[Tim]

What a nice pic! Awesome!