Data from: Islands and streams: clusters and gene flow in wild barley populations from the Levant

The domestication of plants frequently results in a high level of genetic
differentiation between domesticated plants and their wild progenitors.
This process is counteracted by gene flow between wild and domesticated
plants because they are usually able to inter-mate and to exchange genes.
We investigated the extent of gene flow between wild barley Hordeum
spontaneum and cultivated barley Hordeum vulgare, and its effect on
population structure in wild barley by analyzing a collection of 896 wild
barley accessions (Barley1K) from Israel and all available Israeli H.
vulgare accessions from the Israeli gene bank. We compared the performance
of simple sequence repeats (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP)
marker data genotyped over a core collection in estimating population
parameters. Estimates of gene flow rates with SSR markers indicated a high
level of introgression from cultivated barley into wild barley. After
removing accessions from the wild barley sample that were recently admixed
with cultivated barley, the inference of population structure improved
significantly. Both SSR and SNP markers showed that the genetic population
structure of wild barley in Israel corresponds to the three major
ecogeographic regions: the coast, the Mediterranean north, and the deserts
in the Jordan valley and the South. Gene flow rates were estimated to be
higher from north to south than in the opposite direction. As has been
observed in other crop species, there is a significant exchange of alleles
between the wild species and domesticated varieties that needs to be
accounted for in the population genetic analysis of domestication.

Barley1K_microsatellitesB1K illuminaBarley1k locationMS Excel spreadsheet
showing Barley1k locations.Barley1k_location.xls