Co-diversification and co-evolution of human populations and cereals in Africa

ended

The Neolithic agricultural revolution is a key step in recent human evolution that dramatically shaped genetic diversity and adaptations of today populations. Plant domestication played a crucial role in its set-up. Yet the genetics of human migrations and plant domestication is addressed separately. CODEV explores the interaction between these processes in Africa, with an innovative multidisciplinary approach that jointly analyses human and plant genomic data, complemented by ethno-linguistic and environmental information. The largest genomic data-sets available to date of three mayor African cereals and human populations will be analyzed to identify congruent and idiosyncratic signatures of spatio-temporal evolutionary processes. CODEV will inform about whether cereal and human populations have undergone parallel or convergent evolution and co-adaptation. CODEV will yield novel evolutionary insights on the neutral and adaptive dynamics associated with the agricultural transition, a topic of great scientific and public interest. CODEV will also contribute to strengthening research on Africa and African biological resources, still poorly characterized. Determining the genetic bases of adaptation to agriculture is relevant to understand farming-related human diseases. The identification of adaptive genes in cereals informs crop improvement towards more sustainable and hazard-resilient varieties. Transfer of knowledge and capacity building activities will be addressed to European and African graduate students and researchers and outreach events will allow sharing CODEV findings with the civil society. This MSC action will increase the researcher competitiveness for career consolidation through new knowledge on human evolutionary genetics and species interaction analysis, and the increase of her international network. The specialized training enabled by CODEV will reinforce her skills in leadership and project management, scientific dissemination and mentoring.