Credit hours
In-class work per week |
Practice per week |
Credits |
Duration |
Total |
3 |
1 |
8 |
15 weeks |
120 hours |
Instructor
Alessandro Alves Pereira
Objective
To study the historic, anthropological, biological, and genetic factors involved in the domestication of plants, to understand the genetic structure and the ecology of current crops and their meanings in the evolutionary perspective and as sources for genetic breeding and biotechnological projects. It is also aimed to study the impact of genetic changes during the process of plant domestication.
Content
Beginnings of agriculture and human societies; Biological evolution and cultural evolution; Origins of agriculture; Sources of evidence for plant origins and domestication; Classification of cultivated plants; Centers of origin, diversity and domestication of cultivated plants; Patterns of domestication; domestication of plants and landscapes; Evolutionary dynamics under domestication: a) domestication as a result of different selective pressures – domestication syndromes; b) reduction and maintenance of genetic diversity under domestication; Selection under domestication; Selective signatures; Speciation under domestication; Distinction between weeds and crops; Evolution of invasive plants; Dispersals of cultivated plants; Evolutionary history of some crops; Germplasm: conservation and utilization in breeding; “Ex situ”, “in situ”, and “on farm” plant conservation; Implications of the use of transgenic plants and gene flow between transgenic crops and wild plants or traditional varieties.
Bibliography
BARBIERI, R.L.; STUMPF, E.R.T. (2008) Origem e evolução de plantas cultivadas. Brasília, Distrito Federal: Embrapa Informação Tecnológica; Pelotas: Embrapa Clima Temperado.COWAN, C.W.; WATSON, P.J. (2006) The Origins of Agriculture: an International Perspective. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.FRANKEL, H.; BROWN, H.D.; BURDON, J.J. (1995) The Conservation of Plant Biodiversity. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.GEPTS, P.; FAMULA, T.R.; BETTINGER, R.L.; BRUSH, S.B.; DAMANIA, A.B.; McGUIRE, P.E.; QUALSET, C.O. (2012) Biodiversity in Agriculture: Domestication, Evolution, and Sustainability. New York: Cambridge University Press.KOLE, C (2011) Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. LADIZINSKY, G. (1998) Plant Evolution under Domestication. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.HANCOCK, J.F. (2012) Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species. 3rd. Ed. Wallingford: CABI Publishing.HARLAN, J.R. (1992) Crops and Man. Madison: American Society of Agronomy.HEISER, C.B. (1973) Seed to Civilization. W.H. San Francisco: Freeman.PIPERNO, D.; PEARSALL, D. (1998) The Origin of Agriculture in the Neotropics. San Diego: Academic Press.RINDOS, D. (1984) The Origin of Agriculture: an Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Academic Press . SIMMONDS, N.W.; SMARTT, J. (1995) Evolution of Crop Plants. London: Longman. ZEDER, M.A.; BRADLEY, D.G.; EMSHWILLER, E.; SMITH, B.D. (2006) Documenting domestication: new genetic and archaeological paradigms. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.ZOHARY, D.; HOPF, M.; WEISS, E. (2012) Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The origin and spread of domesticated plants in Southwest Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.