TY - JOUR
T1 - On the necessity of combining ethnobotany and genetics to assess agrobiodiversity and its evolution in crops
T2 - A case study on date palms (Phoenix dactylifera L.) in Siwa Oasis, Egypt
AU - Gros-Balthazard, Muriel
AU - Battesti, Vincent
AU - Ivorra, Sarah
AU - Paradis, Laure
AU - Aberlenc, Frédérique
AU - Zango, Oumarou
AU - Zehdi-Azouzi, Salwa
AU - Moussouni, Souhila
AU - Naqvi, Summar Abbas
AU - Newton, Claire
AU - Terral, Jean Frédéric
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - Crop diversity is shaped by biological and social processes interacting at different spatiotemporal scales. Here, we combined population genetics and ethnobotany to investigate date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) diversity in Siwa Oasis, Egypt. Based on interviews with farmers and observation of practices in the field, we collected 149 date palms from Siwa Oasis and 27 uncultivated date palms from abandoned oases in the surrounding desert. Using genotyping data from 18 nuclear and plastid microsatellite loci, we confirmed that some named types each constitute a clonal line, that is, a true-to-type cultivar. We also found that others are collections of clonal lines, that is, ethnovarieties, or even unrelated samples, that is, local categories. This alters current assessments of agrobiodiversity, which are visibly underestimated, and uncovers the impact of low-intensity, but highly effective, farming practices on biodiversity. These hardly observable practices, hypothesized by ethnographic survey and confirmed by genetic analysis, are enabled by the way Isiwans conceive and classify living beings in their oasis, which do not quite match the way biologists do: a classic disparity of etic versus. emic categorizations. In addition, we established that Siwa date palms represent a unique and highly diverse genetic cluster, rather than a subset of North African and Middle Eastern palm diversity. As previously shown, North African date palms display evidence of introgression by the wild relative Phoenix theophrasti, and we found that the uncultivated date palms from the abandoned oases share even more alleles with this species than cultivated palms in this region. The study of Siwa date palms could hence be a key to the understanding of date palm diversification in North Africa. Integration of ethnography and population genetics promoted the understanding of the interplay between diversity management in the oasis (short-time scale), and the origins and dynamic of diversity through domestication and diversification (long-time scale).
AB - Crop diversity is shaped by biological and social processes interacting at different spatiotemporal scales. Here, we combined population genetics and ethnobotany to investigate date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) diversity in Siwa Oasis, Egypt. Based on interviews with farmers and observation of practices in the field, we collected 149 date palms from Siwa Oasis and 27 uncultivated date palms from abandoned oases in the surrounding desert. Using genotyping data from 18 nuclear and plastid microsatellite loci, we confirmed that some named types each constitute a clonal line, that is, a true-to-type cultivar. We also found that others are collections of clonal lines, that is, ethnovarieties, or even unrelated samples, that is, local categories. This alters current assessments of agrobiodiversity, which are visibly underestimated, and uncovers the impact of low-intensity, but highly effective, farming practices on biodiversity. These hardly observable practices, hypothesized by ethnographic survey and confirmed by genetic analysis, are enabled by the way Isiwans conceive and classify living beings in their oasis, which do not quite match the way biologists do: a classic disparity of etic versus. emic categorizations. In addition, we established that Siwa date palms represent a unique and highly diverse genetic cluster, rather than a subset of North African and Middle Eastern palm diversity. As previously shown, North African date palms display evidence of introgression by the wild relative Phoenix theophrasti, and we found that the uncultivated date palms from the abandoned oases share even more alleles with this species than cultivated palms in this region. The study of Siwa date palms could hence be a key to the understanding of date palm diversification in North Africa. Integration of ethnography and population genetics promoted the understanding of the interplay between diversity management in the oasis (short-time scale), and the origins and dynamic of diversity through domestication and diversification (long-time scale).
KW - Phoenix theophrasti Greuter
KW - Siwa Oasis (Egypt)
KW - agrobiodiversity
KW - anthropology
KW - date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.)
KW - domestication
KW - ethnobotany
KW - evolutionary history
KW - farming practices
KW - folk categorization
KW - microsatellite markers
KW - population genetics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090101615&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85090101615&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/eva.12930
DO - 10.1111/eva.12930
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090101615
SN - 1752-4563
VL - 13
SP - 1818
EP - 1840
JO - Evolutionary Applications
JF - Evolutionary Applications
IS - 8
ER -