Eviatar Nevo
University of Haifa, Israel
Title: Adaptive ecological incipient sympatric speciation of wild barley at
Biography
Biography: Eviatar Nevo
Abstract
Sympatric speciation (SS), the origin of new species within a free breeding population or contiguous populations has been under continuous controversy since first proposed by Darwin in his Origin. "Evolution Canyon" (EC) at Mount Carmel, Israel has been a fruitful microclimatic natural model for unraveling incipient adaptive ecological sympatric speciation across life from bacteria through plants and animals. EC consists of hot and dry, south facing, savannoid "African" slope (AS) abutting with a cool and humid, north-facing, forested "European" slope, separated on average by 250 meters. Here, I describe incipient adaptive SS in wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum, the progenitor of all world cultivated barley at EC, based on inter-slope divergent adaptive complexes, inferior inter-slope crosses than intra-slope crosses and sharply divergent RNA-seq and whole genome inter-slope contrasts. Inter-slope adaptive complexes include phenotypically, interslope divergent flowering time, early at AS and late at ES and genotypically, higher genetic polymorphism of allozyme and DNA diversities on AS, higher drought resistance on AS, based on dehydrins, rhizosphere bacteria, and EibiI gene and higher resistance against rust fungi on ES. Wild barley at EC was domesticated by humans in Neolithic times and harbors important abiotic and biotic genetic resources for future cultivated barley improvement.