Growing Lost Crops: Variation under Cultivation in the Eastern Agricultural Complex

种植损失的农作物：东部农业综合体的耕作变化

• 批准号: 1714462
• 负责人: Natalie Mueller
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Mueller Natalie G
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2019-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1714462&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Growing; Lost; Crops; Variation; under

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. This award supports a collaboration between an anthropologist and a soil and crop scientist to investigate several lost crops - plants that were cultivated by Indigenous people in Eastern North America (ENA) for several thousand years, but which fell out of use hundreds of years ago. When the indigenous foods of ENA are invoked, most people imagine maize, beans, and squash - the bountiful harvest spilling out of the archetypal Thanksgiving cornucopia. These crops, also known as the Three Sisters, were historically grown together by Indigenous people across ENA by the time European colonization began. But maize, beans, and many squash varieties (including pumpkins and closely related varieties) were not domesticated in ENA, nor were they a part of its earliest agricultural system. These plants were obtained through trade from Mexico then adapted by eastern farmers to local conditions by around AD 1000 (later for beans). For thousands of years before, beginning in the Late Archaic period around 3800 years ago, ancient farmers in ENA cultivated a group of native seed crops. These pre-maize crops are referred to as the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC). They are a botanically diverse group that includes familiar crops that are still widely grown, such as sunflower and acorn squash, as well as lost crops that are native North American relatives of barley, quinoa, and canary grass, among others. Most of the EAC crops fell out of cultivation before the arrival of European chroniclers and are not recalled in the oral traditions of Indigenous descendent communities, leaving many questions about how they were cultivated. The objective of this research is to study the living progenitors of these crops in the wild and under cultivation in order to better understand the deep history of North America and the dynamics of human-plant co-evolution in general. In addition to these research goals, this project expands the Lost Crops Garden Network, a collaboration among several anthropologists using experimental gardens as tools for experiential learning and research. Several of the EAC crops are now endangered by increased herbicide use and invasive weeds. This project documents the locations of remaining populations of lost crops, an important first step towards conserving a group of plants that have the potential to be re-domesticated and commercialized. One of the key activities funded by this award is the creation of a seed bank, which will facilitate further experimental studies by providing correctly sourced and viable seed to other researchers. These plants were important crops for millennia. With further study and improvement, they have the potential to enhance the food and economic security of contemporary farmers.This project 1) establishes the current range and habitat of EAC crop progenitors and assesses their conservation needs; 2) creates an institutionalized seed bank for EAC crop seeds; 3) studies the effects of different cultivation techniques and environmental factors on plant phenotypes and yield; 4) investigates the role of developmental plasticity and epigenetics in plant domestication; and 5) establishes an accurate range of yield estimates for each crop. This research creates interpretative links between morphologies and/or ancient DNA attributes of archaeobotanical specimens and the agricultural practices that created and maintained them. By doing so, it also 1) helps bridge the gap between historically and ethnographically recorded maize-based agriculture, and the unknown EAC agricultural system that preceded and gave rise to it; and 2) contributes to the study of social change in the eventful last 500 years prior to European colonization, an era which saw the rise of maize agriculture, structural inequality, and regional political confederacies. Globally, this project contributes to an emerging body of research on the role of developmental plasticity and epigenetics in domestication, in particular, and in evolutionary biology in general. Growth experiments will measure the effects of the agroecosystem on plants' development and reproduction, allowing the construction of more accurate optimal foraging models that take into account the immediate effects of cultivation and environmental engineering. This project also explores the epigenetic effects of DNA methylation on crop morphology. Comparative methylome sequencing of control and experimental plants can be used to identify epigenetic signals underpinning phenotypic effects. DNA methylation survives in ancient tissues, so the ancient DNA of archaeobotanical specimens can be used to assess the influence of epigenetics in the domestication process. This research requires an interdisciplinary effort, while also providing training that will enable its recipient to make an experimental approach to the study of ancient agriculture central to her future research and teaching.

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。该奖项支持一位人类学家和一位土壤和农作物科学家之间的合作，以调查几种丢失的作物--北美东部的土著人民种植了数千年的作物，但在数百年前就停止使用了。当提到ENA的本土食物时，大多数人会想象玉米、豆类和南瓜--从典型的感恩节丰收中涌出的丰收。这些作物，也被称为三姐妹，在欧洲殖民开始时，整个ENA的土著人民历史上都是一起种植的。但玉米、豆类和许多南瓜品种(包括南瓜和近缘品种)没有在ENA驯化，也不是其最早农业系统的一部分。这些植物是通过贸易从墨西哥获得的，然后在公元1000年左右由东部农民适应当地的条件(后来用于生产豆类)。几千年前，从大约3800年前的远古晚期开始，ENA的古代农民种植了一批本土种子作物。这些前玉米作物被称为东部农业综合体(EAC)。它们是一个植物学多样化的群体，包括仍然广泛种植的熟悉的作物，如向日葵和橡子南瓜，以及失去的作物，这些作物是大麦、藜麦和金丝雀草等原产于北美的近亲。大多数EAC作物在欧洲编年史人到来之前就停止了种植，在土著后裔社区的口头传统中没有被回忆起来，留下了许多关于它们是如何种植的问题。这项研究的目的是研究这些作物在野外和栽培中的存活祖先，以便更好地了解北美的深厚历史和总体上人-植物共同进化的动态。除了这些研究目标外，该项目还扩大了丢失作物花园网络，这是几位人类学家之间的合作，将实验花园作为体验学习和研究的工具。由于除草剂使用量的增加和外来杂草的入侵，几种东非作物现已濒临灭绝。该项目记录了失去的作物剩余种群的位置，这是保护一组有可能重新驯化和商业化的植物的重要第一步。该奖项资助的关键活动之一是建立种子库，通过向其他研究人员提供来源正确和可行的种子，促进进一步的实验研究。这些植物是几千年来重要的农作物。随着进一步的研究和改进，它们有可能提高当代农民的粮食和经济安全。本项目1)建立EAC作物祖先的现有范围和栖息地，并评估他们的保护需求；2)创建EAC作物种子的制度化种子库；3)研究不同栽培技术和环境因素对植物表型和产量的影响；4)调查发育可塑性和表观遗传学在植物驯化中的作用；5)建立每种作物产量估计的准确范围。这项研究在考古植物学标本的形态和/或古代DNA属性与创造和维护它们的农业实践之间建立了解释性联系。通过这样做，它还有助于1)弥合历史上和民族志记录的以玉米为基础的农业与之前和产生它的未知的东非农业制度之间的差距；2)有助于研究欧洲殖民之前多变的最后500年的社会变化，在那个时代，玉米农业、结构不平等和地区政治联盟出现了兴起。在全球范围内，该项目有助于研究发育可塑性和表观遗传学在驯化中的作用，特别是在一般的进化生物学中的作用。生长实验将衡量农业生态系统对植物发育和繁殖的影响，从而建立更准确的最佳觅食模型，考虑到栽培和环境工程的直接影响。该项目还探索了DNA甲基化对作物形态的表观遗传效应。对照植物和实验植物的比较甲基组测序可以用来识别支持表型效应的表观遗传信号。DNA甲基化在古代组织中幸存下来，因此考古植物学标本的古代DNA可以用来评估表观遗传学在驯化过程中的影响。这项研究需要跨学科的努力，同时也提供培训，使其接受者能够以实验方法研究古代农业，这是她未来研究和教学的核心。