Re: Fw: Line breeding vs hybridization corn/maize.

From: StellrJ at aol.com on 2001.06.28 at 23:35:14(6914) In a message dated Tue, 26 Jun 2001 1:54:36 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Julius Boos" writes: << Wish I had all my 'ducks in a row' AND all my literature in order when something like this comes up! There was an article, in I believe a "Natural History' Mag just a few (3-5?) years ago, the author says they had FINALLY discovered in Mexico the or one of the wild 'grasses' that was +More definitely the or one of the parents of maize as we now know it.>> Question: If fig wasps were taxonomists, would they say figs are all unnatural species, because these evolved in exclusive mutualisms with them? That is, in essence, what we are doing when we call our cultivated crops unnatural. As I see it, all our domesticated plants and animals are simply cases of mutualistic symbiosis; and just as a yucca compromises by losing some seeds to feed a moth larva in exchange for propagation by said moth, so our domesticates do the same. I have no problem giving them the same taxonomic status as any other symbiotic species. To bring this bacvk to aroids, does any genuinely wild population exist of Colocasia esculenta? Jason Hernandez Naturalist-at-Large

Note: this is a very old post, so no reply function is available.