The Consequence of Domestication in the Common Bean

The evolutionary impact of agriculture on crop species resulted in plant populations modified to various extents with respect to their wild progenitors to adapt to new agricultural environments (agro-ecosystems) and to fulfill human demands for food and other uses. During crop domestication, a very similar set of traits were selected over a wide range of plant species, so-called domestication syndrome, providing numerous examples of convergent phenotypic evolution. However, domestication studies have been limited to the analysis of few phenotypic traits while recent works suggest that many different traits have been the target of selection. Here I will present the recent results obtained in the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) using RNA sequencing technology where domestication show not only a deep impact on the genetic diversity and phenotypic expression of the domesticated common bean but also on the architecture of the whole phenotypic expression suggesting that domestication and breeding had a much larger genetic basis and complex consequences that previously observed.