DSSS - Colorful evolution: Macro- and microevolutionary adventures in wild tomato genomes

Beyond being an important source of variation for breeding, wild relatives of crop species also provide unique opportunities to examine evolutionary processes in nature. Nightshades (Solanaceae) are one such group in which genomic and functional information from several model systems (including tomato, potato, and Nicotiana) can be paired with wild diversity, to examine the origin and distribution of natural variation, to infer the genetics of natural traits, and to understand the forces that drive diversification at micro- and macroevolutionary scales. In this talk, I’ll focus on our evolutionary and population genomics analyses of wild tomatoes, and what these reveal about the evolution of key adaptive traits such as fruit color. Using genome-wide genotyping in combination with historical and contemporary field collections, we have inferred the timing of evolutionary changes in fruit color, the identity of underlying causal loci, and evidence for recent repeated phenotypic convergence via introgression on the Galapagos islands. These studies suggest fruitful avenues for using the broader range of wild nightshade variation to understand the genetics of traits that are relevant for both agriculture and adaptive diversification.