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  • Oscar A Pérez-Escobar
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Sidonie Bellott
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Natalia A.S. Przelomska
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Jonathan M. Flowers
    New York University Abu Dhabi
  • Mark Nesbitt
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Philippa Ryan
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Rafal M. Gutaker
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Muriel Gros-Balthazard
    French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Montpellier
  • Tom Wells
    University of Oxford
  • Benedikt G. Kuhnhäuser
    University of Oxford
  • Rowan Schley
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Diego Bogarin
    University of Costa Rica
  • Steven Dodsworth
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Rudy Diaz
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Manuela Lehmann
    British Museum
  • Peter Petoe
    Aarhus University
  • Wolf L. Eiserhardt
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Michaela Preick
    University of Potsdam
  • Michael Hofreiter
    University of Potsdam
  • Irka Hajdas
    ETH Zürich
  • Michael Purugganan
    New York University Abu Dhabi
  • Alexandre Antonelli
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Barbara Gravendeel
    Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden
  • Ilia J. Leitch
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • Maria Fernanda Torres Jimenez
    University of Gothenburg
  • Alexander S. T. Papadopulos
  • Guillame Chomicki
    University of Sheffield
  • Susanne S. Renner
    Washington University, St Louis
  • William J. Baker
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, has been a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and North African agriculture for millennia. It was first domesticated in the Persian Gulf, and its evolution appears to have been influenced by gene flow from two wild relatives, P. theophrasti, currently restricted to Crete and Turkey, and P. sylvestris, widespread from Bangladesh to the West Himalayas. Genomes of ancient date palm seeds show that gene flow from P. theophrasti to P. dactylifera may have occurred by ∼2,200 years ago, but traces of P. sylvestris could not be detected. We here integrate archeogenomics of a ∼2,100-year-old P. dactylifera leaf from Saqqara (Egypt), molecular-clock dating, and coalescence approaches with population genomic tests, to probe the hybridization between the date palm and its two closest relatives and provide minimum and maximum timestamps for its reticulated evolution. The Saqqara date palm shares a close genetic affinity with North African date palm populations, and we find clear genomic admixture from both P. theophrasti, and P. sylvestris, indicating that both had contributed to the date palm genome by 2,100 years ago. Molecular-clocks placed the divergence of P. theophrasti from P. dactylifera/P. sylvestris and that of P. dactylifera from P. sylvestris in the Upper Miocene, but strongly supported, conflicting topologies point to older gene flow between P. theophrasti and P. dactylifera, and P. sylvestris and P. dactylifera. Our work highlights the ancient hybrid origin of the date palms, and prompts the investigation of the functional significance of genetic material introgressed from both close relatives, which in turn could prove useful for modern date palm breeding.

Keywords

  • Ancient DNA, gene flow, population genomics, |Arecaceae, archeobotany, phylogenomics
Original languageEnglish
Article numbermsab188
Pages (from-to)4475-4492
Number of pages18
JournalMolecular Biology and Evolution
Volume38
Issue number10
Early online date30 Jun 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2021

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