Claim · model-written summary
Each classic fruit tree has interconnected wild, weedy, feral and domesticated types with occasional hybridization.
- Taxon
- Olive, grape, date, and fige1
- Outcome
- variable complex of genuinely wild types, secondary weedy derivatives and feral plants, and groups of the domesticated clonese0
Not reportedMaterialGeneCompoundOrgan / stageInteractorInteractor roleSecond interactorSecond interactor roleTreatmentComparatorSettingDirectionValueQualifier
Verbatim
e0“in each of these classic fruit trees we are confronted with a variable complex of genuinely wild types, secondary weedy derivatives and feral plants, and groups of the domesticated clones, which are all interfertile and interconnected by occasional hybridization.”
e1“Olive, grape, date, and fig”
Title
Beginnings of Fruit Growing in the Old World
Daniel Zohary; Pinhas Spiegel-Roy Science 1975. doi:10.1126/science.187.4174.319
Other claims from this paper (7)
- Observation Olive, grape, date and fig were the first important horticultural additions to Mediterranean grain agriculture.
- Observation These fruit trees were most likely domesticated in the Near East in protohistoric time.
- Observation The fruit trees became important food elements in the early Bronze Age.
- Mechanism Domestication of all four fruit trees involved a shift from sexual reproduction to vegetative clonal propagation.
- Mechanism Simple vegetative propagation made the four fruit trees preadapted for early domestication.
- Mechanism Clonal propagation limited selection and fruit set under cultivation.
- Mechanism Introgression from diverse wild gene pools facilitated variation in domesticated crops.