Phenotypic evolution of the wild progenitor of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. spontaneum (K. Koch) Thell.) across bioclimatic regions in Jordan

• Published in: Genetic resources and crop evolution Vol. 69; no. 4; pp. 1485 - 1507
• Main Authors: Al-Hajaj, Nawal, Grando, Stefania, Ababnah, Maysoon, Alomari, Nawar, Albatianh, Ahmad, Nesir, Jeehan, Migdadi, Hussain, Shakhatreh, Yahya, Ceccarelli, Salvatore
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.04.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agriculture; Barley; Bioclimatology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Climate change; Correlation analysis; Cultivation; Evolution; Evolution & development; Grain cultivation; Hordeum spontaneum; Hordeum vulgare; Life Sciences; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Physiology; Plant populations; Plant Sciences; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Populations; Principal components analysis; Research Article; Tillers; Climate change; Environmental adaptation; Ecogeographical differentiation; Crop wild relatives; Phenotypic evolution
• ISSN: 0925-9864; 1573-5109
• DOI: 10.1007/s10722-021-01314-1

Climate change affects the evolutionary potential and the survival of wild plant populations by acting on fitness traits. Resurrection approach was applied to investigate the phenotypic changes during the evolution of the wild progenitor of cultivated barley, Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. s pontaneum (K. Koch.) Thell. in Jordan. We compared 40 Hordeum spontaneum populations collected in Jordan in 1991 with 40 Hordeum spontaneum populations collected from the same sites in 2014. In the comparison we included seven Hordeum vulgare checks (one local landrace and six improved varieties). The correlation analysis between the phenotypic and eco-geographical data based on Principal Component Analysis and Mantel test showed that the populations were aggregated according to their ecological geographical pattern in two groups with a significant ( p  < 0.0001) correlation between groups. Four heritable traits, namely plant height, biological yield, number of tillers, and awn length, determined the phenotypic structure of the populations. The two populations collected at 23 years distance, diverged in two distinctive phenotypic structure categories; a conserved structure and an evolved structure with a reduction in the phenotypic trait diversity in the population collected in 2014. These results reveal the value of combining phenotypic and environmental data to understand the evolution and adaptation of the population to climate change over a long period and the consequences on the wild progenitor of cultivated barley collection to avoid loss of genetic materials.