Where Do Oranges And Lemons Originally Come From?

Gayle Volk, a plant physiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture describes citrus as "fascinating" due to many of the crops processed through hybridization. Citruses have a huge genetic diversity, unlike any other fruit. This recent research has opened up the exploration of the citruses' evolutionary journey. They analyze the genomes of numerous citruses and then study the uncovered insights into the origin of these fruits. Recent hypotheses have stated the origin of citruses was from the Himalayas to northeastern Australia, but after further study, they figured out they originated from south-central China.

The research team at the Huazong Agricultural University in China assembled genomes from a dozen species and compared them with existing genetic records. This then led to them making a phylogenetic tree, and an evolutionary tree, these provided good information on the origin of where they are from. The trees also revealed that citrus plants emerged over 25 million years ago. Mandarins and trifoliate oranges began evolving in south-central China, and other citruses such as pomelo and citron evolved slightly later.

Understanding the genetic origins of citrus has significant implications for their preservation and conservation during environmental challenges such as pests and diseases. Gayle Volk emphasizes the importance of refining the genetic origins for effective conservation. Overall, this genetic study offers us a good glimpse into the complex history of citrus fruits. It shows not just their evolutionary journey but also the critical role genetics play in shaping their flavors and looks. 

Articles: 

Sci Am Article

Evolution in the Citruses

Unraveling Octopus Base Genome

Unraveling octopus base genome

The article that was picked is called the "Unraveling the Octopus's 2.8 billion-Base Genome." to summarize this article they mainly talk about how scientist are determining the genomic structure of a octopus. according to this article Octopoda has about 2.8 billion base pairs which is across thirty chromosomes. In my opinion many animals are fascinated and should be looked at but I decided to look deeper and find an animal that stick outs the most. Octopoda are important creatures but to fully understand them I feel like we need to look into the biology and the genome. Because the researchers that were working on this were able to show that all chromosomes reveal numerous structural changes that occur during evolution. This article talks about how the evolutionary history of the octopus genome spans a period of 44 million years ago.

Dalila Destanović explained that “Even among closely related species, we observed numerous structural changes of the chromosomes. This finding poses questions on genome dynamics throughout their evolutionary history and opens the door to investigate how this relates to their unique traits” (Dalila Destanović). In my opinion I believe this is true because different species have different chromosomes and depending on the species I feel like it's doing research on them can be complicated. Opening the door to evolutionary history can help figure out many    

In the photo above it shows the anatomy of the gene family.     

Reference:

Octopus. National Wildlife Federation. (n.d.). https://www.nwf.org/Educational Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Invertebrates/Octopuses ( Photo) 

Arain, W. (2023, October 29). Decoding the octopus: A leap in understanding cephalopod intelligence. BNN Breaking. https://bnn.network/tech/decoding-the-octopus-a-leap-in-understanding-cephalopod-intelligence/ (Photo)

Neuroscience News. (2023, October 18). Unraveling the Octopus’s 2.8 billion-base genome. https://neurosciencenews.com/octopus-genetics-24962/#:~:text=Summary%3A%20Scientists%20have%20successfully%20determined,comparisons%20with%20other%20cephalopod%20species. 

Ancient African DNA Supports Long Distance Trade and Migration of Europeans into Africa.

 

Africa is a difficult continent to obtain ancient DNA samples from due to its intense heat and moisture which acts as a catalyst for degradation. However, samples were obtained from the bone of three individuals living between about 5,000 and 18,000 years ago. One individual was excavated from the Tanzania region, while the remaining two were discovered north of Zimbabwe in the province of Malawi. All three samples expressed minimal wear due to the nature of their burial conditions in cool, isolated caves and rock shelters. Furthermore, Elizabeth Sawchuk- a bioarcheologist at the University of Alberta affirmed that ancient DNA specialists liaised with the archaeological team to prevent contamination and ensure preservation of said samples.

These ancient inherited sets of genomes were noticed to be increasingly similar between groups within Southern, Eastern, Northern Africa and those of Southern Europe, supporting ancient European migration into all stretches of Africa. These once thought to be unmixed genes show a significant amount of Eurasian ancestry. However, samples contained within the timeframe of the last ice age (20,000 years ago) pointed to the contrary, hypothesizing a preference of local mating rather than traversing dangerous arctic terrain.

 Links:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/back-africa-ancient-human-genome-reveals-widespread-eurasian-mix-180956881/  

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/africa-oldest-human-dna-mating-long-distance-stone-age 

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/ancient-human-dna-provides-new-look-at-african-history-66997