Lijuan Chen^{1, 2}

1 Rice Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China
2 The Key Laboratory for Crop Production and Smart Agriculture of Yunnan Province, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Rice Genomics and Genetics, 2024, Vol. 15, No. 2   doi: 10.5376/rgg.2024.15.0010
Received: 17 Mar., 2024    Accepted: 18 Apr., 2024    Published: 26 Apr., 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Chen L.J., 2024, From wild to cultivated: the domestication pathways of Asian cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L), Rice Genomics and Genetics, 15(2): 85-95 (doi: 10.5376/rgg.2024.15.0010)

The domestication of rice (commonly known as Asian cultivated rice) is a pivotal event in agricultural history, significantly impacting global food security. This review synthesizes current research on the pathways of rice domestication, with a focus on genetic and geographic origins, the role of wild ancestors, and the evolutionary processes involved. Multiple studies indicate that Oryza sativa was independently domesticated from different populations of its wild ancestor, Oryza rufipogon, in various regions of Asia, including southern China, India, and Indochina. Genetic analyses reveal that the two main subspecies, indica and japonica, underwent separate domestication events, followed by gene flow between them. Additionally, the domestication process involved significant genetic changes, such as reduced seed shattering and dormancy, which are crucial for effective cultivation and harvest. This study also explores the impact of human-directed breeding and introgression on the genetic diversity of domesticated rice.

Rice (Oryza sativa L.); Wild rice; Domestication; Phylogeography; Genomic variation