Domestication of Plants in Asian Countries

Running Head: DOMESTICATING OF PLANTS
Domestication of Plants in Asian Countries
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DOMESTICATION OF PLANTS 2
ABSTRACT
Domestication of plants in the process of hereditary reorganization of pants into cultivated forms
according to the interest of humans. The plants' domestication enabled early humans to
manipulate the living standards and plant heredity and the process took generations to attain
because of the understanding of the environment they occupy. As the process of domestication
occurred in Asia, early humans started moving from hunting and gathering community to a
settled agricultural community. This transformation would lead to the first city-states after 4000
to 5000 years later and finally the rise of civilization. The process of domestication was gradual,
a process of intermittent error and trail, and normally leading to characteristics and diverging
traits. Over the duration, small and perennial trees including olive and apple were involved in the
domestication to the current domesticated crops and plants.

DOMESTICATION OF PLANTS 3
Domestication of Plants in Asian Countries
Domestication can be defined as a sustained multi-generational relationship in which a single
group of organisms assumes a substantial level of effect over the care and reproduction of
another group to secure the supply of a more anticipated resource from that second group.
Domestication of plants in the process of hereditary reorganization of pants into cultivated forms
according to the interest of people1. The essential difference of the domesticated plants from their
wild ancestors is that they are developed through human labour to attain particular requirements
and they are adapted to the conditions of consideration and continuous care that are maintained
to them2. Domestication has played a significant part in the development of material culture and
mankind. It has led to the appearance of agriculture as a special form of production of plants.
At around 12,500BCE, the domestication of plants first arose. The plants' domestication enabled
early humans to manipulate the living standards and plant heredity. Domestication took
generations to attain because of the understanding of the environment they occupy. Between
500BCE and 7000BCE, the domestication of plants in East and Central Asia gave early humans
a source of food while playing a significant role in the development of civilization3. The initial
animals' domestication influenced the majority of genes which regulated their behaviour, but the
initial plant domestication influenced majority of the genes that regulated their physiology such
as the timing of ripening or germination and their morphology such as dispersal mechanism,
plant architecture, and seed size.
1 Tang, H., Sezen, U. & Paterson, A., 2010. Domestication and plant genomes. Current
Opinion in Plant Biology, Volume 13, pp. 160-166.
2 Shu-Jun, O., Hong-Ru, W. & Cheng-Cai, C., 2012. Major domestication traits in Asian rice.
Hereditas (Beijing), Volume 34, pp. 1379-1389.
3 Huang, X. & Han, B., 2015. Rice domestication occurred through a single origin and
multiple introgressions. Nature Plants, Volume 2.