Genomics of Wild Cicer of Turkey

All domesticated species are impacted in unintended, often negative ways during domestication and breeding. Their narrow genetic status derives from random demographic processes and from changes in the nature of selection during breeding and cultivation. Loss of adaptive alleles, fixation of deleterious alleles, and low genetic diversity in cultivated species necessarily constrains our ability to expand the cultivation of domesticated species into environments beyond those under which domestication occurred, e.g., into more extreme climates, marginal soils, or with reduced agricultural inputs. We are addressing this need in chickpea, the world’s second most important pulse legume, by harnessing the capacity of wild relatives to survive in harsh environments. Effective use of wild germplasm requires a thorough knowledge of the population genetics and source habitats of the wild material.  Here we examine population genetic variation and abiotic environmental variation in a new, expanded collection of wild chickpea.  We have found substantial variation among and within populations far exceeding previously known variation in chickpea germplasm, as well as several population clusters within the two immediate wild relatives of chickpea, Cicer reticulatum and C. echinospermum that partially track differences in soil substrate, habitat, and elevation.