Lecture 1: History of agriculture Flashcards
At what levels can primary productivity be impacted?
Macro, micro and climatic variation
How has weed control changed agriculture?
Resistance, weed presence in space, climate and socio-political factors
How does seed storage impact agriculture?
seed bank is hugely valuable for genetic resources but sensitive to climatic conditions
Why is it hard to date the start of agriculture?
Decay, loss of records, uncertainty in seed presence
What can the archaeological record tell us about agriculture?
traits associated with domestication, human migration patterns
What is important about seeds?
high-energy and high-density with lots of carbs
How did crop domestication occur?
multiple evolutionary events
Evidence for agriculture
biology of seed traits
What seed traits are selected for?
high carb
low shedding
Characteristics of wild plant populations
Genetically diverse
Selective advantage
Ecotypes
Reduced local diversity and increased genetic diversity
Ecotype
sub population of wild plants which share genes
Reasons to domesticate crops
predictable supply
greater yields
greater control
selection of beneficial traits
Landraces
More selected but genetically diverse compared to modern crops
Inbred cultivars
selection from one individual so uniform
how do we introduce new crop genes
breeding, GM
