A wild grass from Mesoamerica
called
teosinte is accepted as the ancestor of maize/corn, but it does not look much like varieties of corn we know:
 |
How teosinte looks today. (Wiki Commons) |
The vegetative and flowering structures of modern teosinte are very
different from those of corn. These and other differences led to a
century-long dispute as to whether teosinte could really be the ancestor
of corn.
But some greenhouse studies that replicated different atmospheric conditions
resulted in teosinte growing more modern corn-like stalks and ears! According to one of the researchers,
“When humans first began to cultivate teosinte about 10,000 years ago,
it was probably more maize-like—naturally exhibiting some
characteristics previously thought to result from human selection and
domestication. The environment may have played a significant, if
serendipitous, role in the transition through inducing phenotypic
plasticity that gave early farmers a head start.”
1 comment:
Thanks for a great post. Great article and it certainly reinforces why we need to save all the parts of our ecosystems - we simply don't know how things will respond to climate change
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