TY - JOUR T1 - Yam genomics supports West Africa as a major cradle of crop domestication JF - SCIENCE ADVANCES Y1 - 2019 DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aaw1947 A1 - Nora Scarcelli A1 - Philippe Cubry A1 - Roland Akakpo A1 - Anne-Céline Thuillet A1 - Jude Obidiegwu A1 - Mohamed N. Baco A1 - Emmanuel Otoo A1 - Bonaventure Sonké A1 - Alexandre Dansi A1 - Gustave Djedatin A1 - Cédric Mariac A1 - Marie Couderc A1 - Sandrine Causse A1 - Karine Alix A1 - Hâna Chaïr A1 - Olivier François A1 - Yves Vigouroux SP - 1 EP - 8 AB -

While there has been progress in our understanding of the origin and history of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa,
a unified perspective is still lacking on where and how major crops were domesticated in the region. Here, we
investigated the domestication of African yam (Dioscorea rotundata), a key crop in early African agriculture. Using
whole-genome resequencing and statistical models, we show that cultivated yam was domesticated from a forest
species. We infer that the expansion of African yam agriculture started in the Niger River basin. This result, alongside
with the origins of African rice and pearl millet, supports the hypothesis that the vicinity of the Niger River
was a major cradle of African agriculture.

VL - 5 IS - 5 ER -