2018•Nature CommunicationsOpen access
Origin and evolution of qingke barley in Tibet
Xingquan Zeng, Yu Guo, Qijun Xu, Martin Mascher, Ganggang Guo, Shuai Cheng Li, Likai Mao, Qingfeng Liu, Zhanfeng Xia, Juhong Zhou, Hongjun Yuan, Shuaishuai Tai, Yulin Wang, Zexiu Wei, Li Song, Zha Sang, Shiming Li, Yawei Tang, Lijun Bai, Zhenhua Zhuang, Weiming He, Shancen Zhao, Xiaodong Fang, Qiang Gao, Ye Yin, Jian Wang, Huanming Yang, Jıng Zhang, Robert J Henry, Nils Stein, Nyima Tashi
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Abstract
Tibetan barley (Hordeum vulgare L., qingke) is the principal cereal cultivated on the Tibetan Plateau for at least 3,500 years, but its origin and domestication remain unclear. Here, based on deep-coverage whole-genome and published exome-capture resequencing data for a total of 437 accessions, we show that contemporary qingke is derived from eastern domesticated barley and it is introduced to southern Tibet most likely via north Pakistan, India, and Nepal between 4,500 and 3,500 years ago. The low genetic diversity of qingke suggests Tibet can be excluded as a center of origin or domestication for barley. The rapid decrease in genetic diversity from eastern domesticated barley to qingke can be explained by a founder effect from 4,500 to 2,000 years ago. The haplotypes of the five key domestication genes of barley support a feral or hybridization origin for Tibetan weedy barley and reject the hypothesis of native Tibetan wild barley.
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