Was barley locally adapted to drought conditions in ancient Nubia?

面对日益增长的全球人口和气候变化，未来农业面临的最严峻挑战之一是水资源的可用性。然而，我们并不是第一个面临这个问题的人。我们可以从过去在极端环境中种植作物数千年的文明中吸取教训。有证据表明，作物的地方品种可能已经存在了几千年，很可能特别适应了当地的环境。实际上，这些地方品种代表了数千年来的选择性育种的努力，应该被视为不可替代的遗传资源。不幸的是，许多这样的地方品种现在已经被现代品种所取代。在某些情况下，我们可以通过考古植物遗骸来了解这些地方物种。这项研究的重点是世界上与古埃及有关的一个地区-努比亚。古努比亚南部的居民面临着用水紧张的生活环境。有趣的是，他们种植的“较小”大麦的考古植物样本显示出一些证据，表明他们以一种在现代世界中看不到的方式适应干旱条件。此外，似乎来自该地区以外的连续文化采用了这种大麦类型，而不是引进他们自己的表面上产量更高的“大”品种，比如在西部绿洲种植的品种，以及在尼罗河流域更北的地方，那里的水不那么稀缺。我们认为这是因为努比亚大麦比其他品种更适合南尼罗河谷的恶劣环境。在这种情况下，也许小是更美丽的。在这个项目中，我们打算检查来自努比亚遗址的考古植物样本中最有可能受到干旱胁迫影响的大部分大麦基因组（0.5%），以找出这些古老的地方品种是否以及如何变得更适合他们的环境。我们将确定“适应性”等位基因是否可以作为未来育种计划的遗传资源。我们还将发现地方种族是否保持了“纯粹”，或者是否有一种类型是通过带有新文化的遗传物质的涌入而维持的。这项研究将为我们提供重要的见解，让我们了解作物在多大程度上随着文化传播，或者在多大程度上适应了多种文化，以及努比亚的古代人口是否通过遗传方式解决了水资源短缺问题，这将有助于我们面对未来。

Nubian barley - Summary One of the most serious challenges in the future of agriculture in the face of an increasing global population and climate change is water availability. However, we are not the first to face this problem. Lessons may be learned from past civilizations that grew crops in extreme environments for thousands of years. Evidence suggests that landraces of crops may have been in place for several millennia and likely to be specifically well adapted to their local environment. In effect, such landraces represent the efforts of thousands of years of selective breeding that should be regarded as an irreplaceable genetic resource. Unfortunately, many such landraces have now been lost by replacement with modern varieties. In some instances, we have access to those landraces through archaeobotanical remains. This study focuses on an area of the world associated with ancient Egypt - Nubia. The populations of southern ancient Nubia faced an environment in which water stress was a way of life. Interestingly, archaeobotanical samples of the 'smaller' barley that they grew shows some evidence of being adapted to drought conditions in a way that is not seen in the modern world. Furthermore, it seems that successive cultures from outside the region adopted this barley type, rather than introduce their own superficially higher yielding 'larger' varieties such as was grown in the Western Oases, and further north up the Nile Valley where water was not so scarce. We think this is because the Nubian barley was better suited to the harsh environment of the southern Nile Valley than outside varieties. In this case perhaps small was more beautiful. In this project we intend to examine a large portion of the barley genome (0.5%) most likely to be affected by drought stress in archaeobotanical samples from Nubian sites spanning 3000 years to find out if and how these ancient landraces became better suited to their environment. We will determine whether 'adapted' alleles could be utilized as a genetic resource for future breeding programs. We will also find out whether the landrace was kept 'pure', or whether a type was maintained with an influx of genetic material with new cultures. This study will provide us with important insight into the extent to which crops spread with culture or became locally adapted to the benefit of many cultures, and whether the ancient populations of Nubia solved problems of water shortage genetically in ways that will help us face the future.