Phylogeography of Asian wild rice, Oryza rufipogon, reveals multiple independent domestications of cultivated rice, Oryza sativa

doi:10.1073/pnas.0603152103

Phylogeography of Asian wild rice, Oryza rufipogon, reveals multiple independent domestications of cultivated rice, Oryza sativa

^†Department of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130;
^§Department of Life Sciences, Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan 912; and
^¶Department of Life Sciences, Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 701

Contributed by Barbara A. Schaal, May 1, 2006

Abstract

Cultivated rice, Oryza sativa L., represents the world’s most important staple food crop, feeding more than half of the human population. Despite this essential role in world agriculture, the history of cultivated rice’s domestication from its wild ancestor, Oryza rufipogon, remains unclear. In this study, DNA sequence variation in three gene regions is examined in a phylogeographic approach to investigate the domestication of cultivated rice. Results indicate that India and Indochina may represent the ancestral center of diversity for O. rufipogon. Additionally, the data suggest that cultivated rice was domesticated at least twice from different O. rufipogon populations and that the products of these two independent domestication events are the two major rice varieties, Oryza sativa indica and Oryza sativa japonica. Based on this geographical analysis, O. sativa indica was domesticated within a region south of the Himalaya mountain range, likely eastern India, Myanmar, and Thailand, whereas O. sativa japonica was domesticated from wild rice in southern China.

Footnotes

^‡To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: jplondo{at}wustl.edu or schaal{at}biology.wustl.edu
Author contributions: J.P.L. and Y.-C.C. designed research; J.P.L., Y.-C.C., K.-H.H., and B.A.S. performed research; T.-Y.C. and B.A.S. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; J.P.L. and Y.-C.C. analyzed data; and J.P.L. wrote the paper.
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. AM177181–AM177311 and AM179944–AM179987).