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Domestication of date palms in Siwa oasis and across the Middle East and North Africa : articulate the scales of
ethnography and domestication over the long term
Vincent Battesti, Muriel Gros-Balthazard
To cite this version:
Vincent Battesti, Muriel Gros-Balthazard. Domestication of date palms in Siwa oasis and across the Middle East and North Africa : articulate the scales of ethnography and domestication over the long term. Harlan III, : the Third Jack R. Harlan International Symposium Dedicated to the Origins of Agriculture and the Domestication, Evolution, and Utilization of Genetic Resources, Jun 2019, Montpellier, France. �hal-02270215�
Domestication of date palms in Siwa Oasis and across the
Middle East and North Africa:
Vincent Battesti & Muriel Gros-Balthazard
(CNRS/Musée de l’Homme, MNHN & Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, NYU Abu Dhabi)
Articulating the scales of
ethnography and of domestication over the long term
Studying date palm agrobiodiversity in the oasis of Siwa (Egypt), by
combining ethnobotany and genetics, we demonstrated:
• The existence of “ethnovarieties,” i.e., voluntary collections of multiple
clones sharing mostly phenotypic characteristics under the same local
name, as a way to manage agrobiodiversity.
• Siwa’s cultivated date palms form a third genetic cluster, with a large
and unique diversity, compared to the previously described Middle
Eastern and North African date palms.
• Siwa region's feral date palms are also distinct, sharing alleles with
another Phoenix species (P. theophrasti), a gene pool for local farmers.
Siwa oasis (Egypt), at the crossroads of ancient Trans-Saharan routes and of the oriental and
western genetic cluster
Possible main location for Phoenix dactylifera domestication
INTRODUCTION
The history of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) as a cultivated plant is still poorly known, despite some major advances made using genetic tools1. An unexpectedly high differentiation between African and Middle Eastern populations was discovered and its origins was only recently explained by the North African date
palms being introgressed by a wild relative: Phoenix theophrasti Greuter2.
Moreover, ways of assessing the current agrobiodiversity of the cultivated date palm do not yet seem well established4.
OBJECTIVES: To better seize the long- and short-term domestication process of this cultivated and
emblematic crop, the date palm, our approach combines anthropology (ethnoecology) with population genetics (using 17 microsatellite markers).
An original folk
categorization system by
Siwa inhabitants
Some named types are true cultivars as supposed to be in oasis phoeniculture: they share not only a formalidentity, important for Isiwan people, but also a genetic identity.
Some are (what we coined)
“ethnovarieties,” i.e.,
voluntary collections of multiple clones sharing mostly phenotypic
characteristics under the same local name.
The existence of
"ethnovarieties" results from a cultural practice of oasis farmers towards date palm trees and from their way to think of them3, 4.
The same idea applies to the notion we call "categories", a way to name other date
palms that are not or poorly reproduced by off-shoot by the local community.
An original, large and unique
biodiversity in Siwa
Why such a complex local system in Siwa for categorizing living organisms and in particular date palms?
- To stock a huge amount of information and to be able to mobilize it easily.
- To allow a flexible management of agrobiodiversity in this local context.
While we expected Siwa diversity to be found within the known
African cluster, we found that it constitutes a separate population.
Feral date palms, collected in
abandoned oasis around Siwa share alleles with Phoenix theophrasti, the species that is known to have
introgressed African date palms2.
The most direct consequence is the
demonstration that we had until then a clear underestimation of the richness in genetic
resources of date palm: about fifteen named types identified are not about fifteen genetic combinations of alleles.
3412_alkak_wen_djemb
2417_alkak_wen_djemb 3408_alkak_wen_djemb
3409_alkak_wen_djemb
3410_alkak_wen_djemb 3411_alkak_wen_djemb
3399_amenzu 3403_amenzu 3297_amenzu 3398_amenzu
3400_amenzu 3401_amenzu 3402_amenzu 3413_ghrom_aghzal
3294_ghrom_aghzal 3414_ghrom_aghzal 3415_ghrom_aghzal 3416_ghrom_aghzal 3417_ghrom_aghzal
3366_ghrom_saaid 3367_ghrom_saaid
3354_kaaibi
3355_kaaibi 3356_kaaibi 3357_kaaibi 3358_kaaibi 3359_kaaibi
3404_lekrawmet
3405_lekrawmet 3406_lekrawmet 3407_lekrawmet 3373_tadjubart
2405_tattagt 3378_tattagt 3456_tattagt 3374_tattagt 3375_tattagt 3376_tattagt 3377_tattagt 3379_tattagt 3457_tazuwaght
2410_ushik_am_aghzuz 3353_ushik_am_aghzuz
3349_ushik_azzugagh 3350_ushik_azzugagh 3351_ushik_azzugagh 3352_ushik_azzugagh
2419_ushik_ezzuwagh 3362_ushik_ezzuwagh 3364_ushik_ezzuwagh
2412_ushik_ezzuwagh 3360_ushik_ezzuwagh 3361_ushik_ezzuwagh
3363_ushik_ezzuwagh 3365_ushik_ezzuwagh
3442_ushik_nekwayes 2406_ushik_nekwayes
3443_ushik_nekwayes 3444_ushik_nekwayes 3445_ushik_nekwayes
3446_ushik_nekwayes 3447_ushik_nekwayes 3448_ushik_nekwayes
3449_ushik_nekwayes 3450_ushik_nekwayes
3451_ushik_nekwayes 2422_ushik_niqbel
3296_ushik_niqbel 3389_ushik_niqbel 3392_ushik_niqbel 3458_ushik_niqbel 3459_ushik_niqbel 2423_ushik_niqbel
3390_ushik_niqbel 3391_ushik_niqbel 3393_ushik_niqbel 3394_ushik_niqbel
ṣaɛidi [tasutet] (siwi)
alkak (freḥi)
3388_ushik_niqbel
aghzāl
ḥalu en ghanem úšik #2
úšik #1
Uncultivated date palm from the desert
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−5 0 5 10
05101520
PC1 (4.44%)
PC2 (2.93%)
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West East
Nilotic Egypt Siwa cult
Siwa feral desert P. theophrasti
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−6 −4 −2 0 2 4
−10051015
PC3 (2.48%)
PC4 (2.11%)
Siwa date palms show a very large diversity and a diversity that is unique to this oasis.
The origins of Siwa date palms is a mystery. Genomic data and
our island theory of oases will further help us understanding this unique diversity.
Using an existing SSR dataset from 5, 6, 7.
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−4 0 2 4 6
−4−2024
PC1 (4.36%)
PC2 (2.68%)
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● West East Nilotic Egypt Siwa cult Siwa feral desert
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−10 0 5 10 15
−10051020
PC3 (2.16%)
PC4 (1.91%)
PCA 17 SSRs
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Siwa oasis Siwa feral North AFrica Middle East P. theophrasti
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
c c a b d
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Siwa oasis Siwa feral North AFrica Middle East P. theophrasti
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
e d c a b
Allelic richness Private allelic richness
Rarefaction method, haploid sample size = 18
Letters indicate Tukey’s groups derived from Tukey’s test
1 - Gros-Balthazard, Muriel, Khaled M. Hazzouri & Jonathan M. Flowers (2018), Genomic Insights into Date Palm Origins. Genes, 9 (10), 502. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes9100502 2 - Flowers, Jonathan M., et al. (2019), Cross-species hybridization and the origin of North African date palms. PNAS, 116 (5), p. 1651-1658. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/5/1651 3 - Battesti, Vincent & Gros-Balthazard, Muriel et al. (2018), Date palm agrobiodiversity (Phoenix dactylifera L.) in Siwa oasis, Egypt : combining ethnography, morphometry, and
genetics. Human Ecology, 46 (4), p. 529–546. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01716788
4 - Battesti, Vincent (2013), L’agrobiodiversité du dattier (Phoenix dactylifera L.) dans l’oasis de Siwa (Égypte) : entre ce qui se dit, s’écrit et s’oublie ». Revue d'ethnoécologie, 4.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/ethnoecologie.1538
5 - Zango, O. et al. (2017), Genetic diversity of Southeastern Nigerien date palms reveals a secondary structure within Western populations. Tree Genet. Genomes 13, 75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-017-1150-z
6 - Zehdi-Azouzi, S. et al. (2015), Genetic structure of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) in the Old World reveals a strong differentiation between eastern and western populations. Ann. Bot. 116, 101–112. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcv068
7 - Moussouni, Souhila et al. (2017), Diversity of Algerian oases date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L., Arecaceae): Heterozygote excess and cryptic structure suggest farmer management had a major impact on diversity. PLOS ONE, 12 (4), e0175232. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175232
Vincent Battesti
Musée de l’Homme — UMR 7206 Éco-anthropologie (CNRS MNHN P7) 17, place du Trocadéro - 75016 Paris — France
http://vbat.org — x@vbat.org Muriel Gros-Balthazard
NYU Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Campus — Experimental Research (C1), RL1-D P.O. Box 129188 Abu Dhabi — United Arab Emirates
mgb7@nyu.edu
Co n ta cts
Data : under publication (Gros-Balthazard & Battesti et al.)
With the decisive collaboration of the farmers of the Siwa Oasis (Egypt) who shared their practices and
knowledge.
HarlanIII–Montpellier,June2019