New research in Science is showing how the rise of modern agriculture has turned a North American native plant, common waterhemp, into a problematic agricultural weed.
New research in Science is showing how the rise of modern agriculture has turned a North American native plant, common waterhemp, into a problematic agricultural weed.
An international team led by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) compared 187 waterhemp samples from modern farms and neighbouring wetlands with more than 100 historical samples dating as far back as 1820 that had been stored in museums across North America. Much like the sequencing of ancient human and neanderthal remains has resolved key mysteries about human history, studying the plant’s genetic makeup over the last two centuries allowed the researchers to watch evolution in action across changing environments.
“The genetic variants that help the plant do well in modern agricultural settings have risen to high frequencies remarkably quickly since agricultural intensification in the 1960s,” said first author Dr. Julia Kreiner, a postdoctoral researcher in UBC’s Department of Botany.
Read more at University of British Columbia
Image: Lead author Dr. Julia Kreiner performing DNA extractions of historical herbarium samples in the ancient DNA lab in Tuebingen, Germany. (Credit: Julia Kreiner, University of British Columbia)
