I found this research on wired, so if you want a quick non-technical overview Science Reveals the Surprising Origins of the Potato Tbh I don’t know exactly how surprising this is, but it’s pretty...
I found this research on wired, so if you want a quick non-technical overview
Tbh I don’t know exactly how surprising this is, but it’s pretty interesting. I knew generally that tomatoes and potatoes were both in the nightshade family but not that it was the result of an interbreeding between the tomato and some other ancestor species many millions of years ago, nor that producing tubers was such a genetic innovation.
The estimated divergence times of Petota/Tomato (∼9.0 million years ago [MYA], 95% confidence interval 8.95–9.00 MYA) and Petota/Etuberosum (∼8.5 MYA, 95% confidence interval 8.41–8.51 MYA) were relatively close and much younger than that of the two parental lineages (Tomato/Etuberosum: ∼12.8–13.6 MYA) (Figure 2E).
I found this research on wired, so if you want a quick non-technical overview
Science Reveals the Surprising Origins of the Potato
Tbh I don’t know exactly how surprising this is, but it’s pretty interesting. I knew generally that tomatoes and potatoes were both in the nightshade family but not that it was the result of an interbreeding between the tomato and some other ancestor species many millions of years ago, nor that producing tubers was such a genetic innovation.