TY - JOUR T1 - Portrait of a genus: genome sequencing reveals evidence of adaptive variation in <em>Zea</em> JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2022.06.03.494450 SP - 2022.06.03.494450 AU - Lu Chen AU - Jingyun Luo AU - Minliang Jin AU - Ning Yang AU - Xiangguo Liu AU - Yong Peng AU - Wenqiang Li AU - Alyssa Philips AU - Brenda Cameron AU - Julio Bernal AU - Rubén Rellán-Álvarez AU - Ruairidh JH Sawers AU - Liu Qing AU - Yuejia Yin AU - Xinnan Ye AU - Jiali Yan AU - Qinghua Zhang AU - Xiaoting Zhang AU - Shenshen Wu AU - Songtao Gui AU - Wenjie Wei AU - Yuebin Wang AU - Yun Luo AU - Chengling Jiang AU - Min Deng AU - Min Jin AU - Liumei Jian AU - Yanhui Yu AU - Maolin Zhang AU - Xiaohong Yang AU - Matthew B. Hufford AU - Alisdair R. Fernie AU - Marilyn L. Warburton AU - Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra AU - Jianbing Yan Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/06/04/2022.06.03.494450.abstract N2 - Maize is a globally valuable commodity and one of the most extensively studied genetic model organisms. However, we know surprisingly little about the extent and potential utility of the genetic variation found in the wild relatives of maize. Here, we characterize a high-density genomic variation map from 744 genomes encompassing maize and all wild taxa of the genus Zea, identifying over 70 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and nearly 9 million Insertion/Deletion (InDel) polymorphisms. The variation map reveals evidence of selection within taxa displaying novel adaptations to traits such as waterlogging, perenniality and regrowth. We focus in detail on adaptive alleles in highland teosinte and temperate maize and highlight the key role of flowering time related pathways in highland and high latitude adaptation. To show how this data can identify useful genetic variants, we generated and characterized novel mutant alleles for two flowering time candidate genes. This work provides the most extensive sampling to date of the genetic diversity of the genus Zea, resolving questions on evolution and identifying adaptive variants for direct use in modern breeding.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -