Brief History of Maize Domestication Studies

Research on maize domestication has attracted a great deal of interest over the last century, including the attention of two Nobel laureates. Of primary interest is the evolutionary question of how maize was domesticated from a wild relative that differs so dramatically in ear and plant morphology.

The study of maize domestication can be divided into two main periods:

1. Competing Hypotheses: The first period began in the 1930s when George Beadle and Paul Mangelsdorf proposed two contrasting hypotheses for the origin of maize. Beadle proposed the "Teosinte Hypothesis" in which maize is simply a domesticated form of teosinte. He believed that, through artificial selection by ancient populations, several small mutations with relatively large effects could have transformed teosinte into maize. In contrast, Mangelsdorf suggested maize was the product of a hybridization between an undiscovered wild maize and Tripsacum, known as the "Tripartite Hypothesis." From its debut in 1938 until the 1960s, the Tripartite Hypothesis was widely accepted. Through productive collaborations with prominent archaelogists of his day and widespread efforts targeting maize germplasm conservation, Mangelsdorf was able to publicize his theory among a wide audience. Upon his "retirement" in 1968, however, George Beadle rejoined the maize controversy and vigorously championed the Teosinte Hypothesis. His own genetic research, followed by chromosomal studies by McClintock and Kato and morphological systematics by Iltis, would eventually convince the majority of biologists of the Teosinte Hypothesis. Although revisions of the Tripartite Hypothesis were suggested by Mangelsdorf in the 1980s and again by Eubanks in the 1990s, no convincing molecular genetic evidence has ever been found to support these revised Tripsacum hypotheses.

2. The Genome: The second period began in the late 1960s when researchers focused their attention on describing the diversity and evolutionary relationships within the genus Zea, and on determining those genes involved in domestication and the evolution of the genome. Garrison Wilkes published the first thorough monograph on teosinte in 1967. Hugh Iltis, John Doebley, Rapheal Guzman, and B. Pazy invigorated teosinte research by discovering and describing the perennial species Z. diploperennis. In 1980, Iltis and Doebley established an organized taxonomy that considered the probable evolutionary relationships between taxa. McClintock and Kato synthesized and published chromosomal knob diversity data that had been collected over the previous 30 years in 1981. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Charles Stuber and Major Goodman's research groups produced comprehensive analyses of isozyme diversity in over 1000 maize races and in almost all known teosinte populations. With the advent of DNA analysis and sequencing in the 1980s, John Doebley, Ed Buckler, and Brandon Gaut refined the phylogenetic relationships among grasses and the genus Zea, contributing to our understanding of how the genome has evolved. Beginning in the 1990s, John Doebley's research group began to discover some of the genes involved in maize domestication.

Biologists:

Beadle | Mangelsdorf | McClintock | Iltis | Galinat | Wilkes | Kato | Goodman | Stuber | Doebley | Gaut | Buckler | Eubanks | Sanchez | Bretting

Archaeologists:

MacNeish | Lathrap | Flannery | Pearsall | Piperno | Benz | Bird | Lamkey | Labate

George W. Beadle

BEADLE, G. W., 1939 Teosinte and the origin of maize. J Hered 30: 245-247.

BEADLE, G. W., 1972 The mystery of maize. Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 43: 2-11.

BEADLE, G. W., 1977 The origin of Zea mays, pp. 615-635 in Origins of Agriculture, edited by C. A. Reed. Mouton Press, The Hague.

BEADLE, G. W., 1980 The ancestry of corn. Scientific American 242: 112-119.

Paul C. Mangelsdorf

MANGELSDORF, P. C., 1947 The origin and evolution of maize. Advances in Genetics 1: 161-207.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., 1950 The mystery of corn. Scientific American July.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., 1958 Reconstructing the ancestor of corn. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 102: 454-463.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., 1974 Corn. Its Origin Evolution and Improvement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts..

MANGELSDORF, P. C., 1986 The origin of corn. Scientific American 254: 80-86.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., R. S. MACNEISH and W. C. GALINAT, 1964 Domestication of corn. Science 143: 538-545.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., R. S. MACNEISH and W. C. GALINAT, 1967 Prehistoric wild and cultivated maize, pp. 178-200 in The Prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley: Environment and Subsistence, edited by D. S. Byers. University of Texas Press, Austin.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., and R. G. REEVES, 1938 The origin of maize. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 24: 303-312.

MANGELSDORF, P. C., and R. G. REEVES, 1939 The origin of Indian corn and its relatives. Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 574: 1-315.

Barbara McClintock

MCCLINTOCK, B., 1929 Chromosome morphology in Zea mays. Science 69: 629.

MCCLINTOCK, B., T. A. KATO Y. and A. BLUMENSCHEIN, 1981 Chromsome Constitution of Races of Maize. Colegio de Postgraduados, Chapingo, Mexico.

H. Garrison Wilkes

WILKES, H. G., 1967 Teosinte: the closest relative of maize. The Bussey Inst. of Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA.

WILKES, H. G., 1972 Maize and its wild relatives. Science 177: 1071-1077.

Hugh H. Iltis

ILTIS, H. H., 1972 The taxonomy of Zea mays (Gramineae). Phytologia 23: 248-249.

ILTIS, H. H., 1983 From teosinte to maize: the catastrophic sexual transmutation. Science 222: 886-894.

ILTIS, H. H., and J. F. DOEBLEY, 1980 Taxonomy of Zea (Gramineae). II. Subspecific categories in the Zea mays complex and generic synopsis. Amer J Bot 67: 994-1004.

ILTIS, H. H., J. F. DOEBLEY, R. G. M. and B. PAZY, 1979 Zea diploperennis (Gramineae): a new teosinte from Mexico. Science 203: 186-188.

Walton C. Galinat

GALINAT, W., 1984 The origin of maize. Science 225: 1094-1094.

GALINAT, W. C., 1971 The origin of maize. Annual Review of Genetics 5: 447-478.

GALINAT, W. C., R. S. K. CHAGANTI and F. D. HAGER, 1964 Tripsacum as a possible amphidiploid of wild maize and Manisuris. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University 20: 289-316.

Angel Kato Y.

KATO Y., T. A., 1976 Cytological studies of maize (Zea mays L.) and teosinte (Zea mexicana Schrader Kuntze) in relation to their origin and evolution. Mass. Agric. Expt. Sta. Bull. 635: 1-185.

KATO Y., T. A., 1984 Chromosome morphology and the origin of maize and its races. Evolutionary Biology 17: 219-253.

KATO Y., T. A., and A. LOPEZ R., 1990 Chromosome knobs of the perennial teosintes. Maydica 35: 125-141.

Major M. Goodman

GOODMAN, M. M., and W. L. BROWN, 1988 Races of corn, pp. 33-79 in Corn and Corn Improvement, edited by G. F. Sprague and J. W. Dudley. American Society of Agronomy, Inc., Madison, Wisconsin.

GOODMAN, M. M., and C. W. STUBER, 1983 Races of maize. VI. Isozyme variation among races of maize in Bolivia. Maydica 28: 169-187.

SMITH, J. S. C., M. M. GOODMAN and C. W. STUBER, 1984 Variation within teosinte. III. Numerical analysis of allozyme data. Econ. Bot. 38: 97-113.

Charles W. Stuber

DOEBLEY, J., J. D. WENDEL, J. S. C. SMITH, C. W. STUBER and M. M. GOODMAN, 1988 The origin of cornbelt maize: the isozyme evidence. Econ. Bot. 42: 120-131.

DOEBLEY, J. F., M. M. GOODMAN and C. W. STUBER, 1986 Exceptional genetic divergence of northern flint corn. Amer J Bot 73: 64-69.

SMITH, J. S. C., M. M. GOODMAN and C. W. STUBER, 1984 Variation within teosinte. III. Numerical analysis of allozyme data. Econ. Bot. 38: 97-113.

John F. Doebley

DOEBLEY, J., W. RENFROE and A. BLANTON, 1987 Restriction site variation in the Zea chloroplast genome. Genetics 117: 139-147.

DOEBLEY, J., A. STEC and C. GUSTUS, 1995 teosinte branched1 and the origin of maize: evidence for epistasis and the evolution of dominance. Genetics 141: 333-346.

DOEBLEY, J., A. STEC and L. HUBBARD, 1997 The evolution of apical dominance in maize. Nature 386: 485-488.

DOEBLEY, J. F., M. M. GOODMAN and C. W. STUBER, 1984 Isoenzymatic variation in Zea (Gramineae). Syst Bot 9: 203-218.

DOEBLEY, J. F., and H. H. ILTIS., 1980 Taxonomy of Zea (Gramineae) I. A subgeneric classification with key to taxa. Amer J Bot 67: 982-993.

DOEBLEY, J. F., and A. STEC, 1991 Genetic analysis of the morphological differences between maize and teosinte. Genetics 129: 285-295.

DORWEILER, J., A. STEC, J. KERMICLE and J. DOEBLEY, 1993 Teosinte glume architecture 1: a genetic locus controlling a key step in maize evolution. Science 262: 233-235.

Bruce F. Benz

BENZ, B. F., and H. H. ILTIS, 1990 Studies in archaeological maize I: the "wild" maize from San Marcos cave reexamined. American Antiquity 55: 500-511.

BENZ, B. F., L. R. SÁNCHEZ-VELÁSQUEZ and F. J. S. MICHEL, 1990 Ecology and ethnobotany of Zea diploperennis: preliminary investigations. Maydica 35: 85-98.

LONG, A., B. F. BENZ, D. J. DONAHUE, A. J. T. JULL and L. J. TOOLIN, 1989 First direct dates on early maize from Tehuacán, Mexico. Radiocarbon 31: 1035-1040.

Brandon S. Gaut

EYRE-WALKER, A., R. L. GAUT, H. HILTON, D. L. FELDMAN and B. S. GAUT, 1998 Investigation of the bottleneck leading to the domestication of maize. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95: 4441-4446.

GAUT, B. S., and M. T. CLEGG, 1993 Molecular evolution of the Adh1 locus in genus Zea. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 90: 5095-5099.

GAUT, B. S., and J. F. DOEBLEY, 1997 DNA sequence evidence for the segmental allotetraploid origin of maize. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 94: 6809-6814.

Edward S. Buckler

BUCKLER, E. S., IV, and T. P. HOLTSFORD, 1996 Zea systematics: ribosomal ITS evidence. Mol. Biol. Evol. 13: 612-622.

BUCKLER, E. S., IV, T. L. PHELPS-DURR, C. S. K. BUCKLER, R. K. DAWE, J. F. DOEBLEY et al., 1999 Meiotic drive of knobs reshaped the maize genome. Genetics 153: 415-426.

Mary W. Eubanks

EUBANKS, M., 1995 A cross between two maize relatives: Tripsacum dactyloides and Zea diploperennis. Econ. Bot. 49: 172-182.

EUBANKS, M. W., 1997 Molecular analysis of crosses between Tripsacum dactyloides and Zea diploperennis (Poaceae). Theor App Genet 94: 707-712.

Jesus Sanchez

SANCHEZ G., J. D. J., T. A. KATO Y., M. AGUILAR S., J. M. HERNANDEZ C., A. LOPEZ R. et al., 1998 Distribucion y Caracterizacion del Teocintle. Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agricolas y Pecuarias, Guadalajara, Mexico.

SANCHEZ G., J. J., 1992 Relationships among the Mexican races of maize. Econ. Bot. 46: 72