Striking convergent selection history of wheat and barley and its potential for breeding

Over the past 10,000 years, the development of civilization has been enabled by the domestication of plants and animals tailored to human needs. The Triticeae tribe, including barley and wheat, has emerged as one of the most important sources of staple foods worldwide. Here, comparing genomes of wheat and barley genotypes from around the world, we unveiled genomic footprints of convergent selection affecting genes involved in crop adaptation and productivity, as well as a lack of parallel selection for diverse genes delivering genetic diversity specific to particular geographic and associated environmental conditions. We demonstrate that studying convergent selection between crops can help to identify genes crucial for adaptation and sources of diversity for improving cultivated species—forming the basis of the proposed concept of inter-crop translational research for breeding.