Tue, Jun-05-12, 09:35
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Senior Member
Posts: 112
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Plan: No added sugar/nostarches
Stats: 193/174/170
BF:
Progress: 83%
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There are at least two important stories behind the history of the coconut. One is the story of the domestication of the coconut by humans, probably in the Pacific around Indonesia, spreading from there throughout the tropics and back to Africa. This occurred during the last several thousand years, not 40,000 years ago or before. This article contains the science, and an excellent graphic display at the end:
http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22438.aspx
However, there was an earlier dispersal, prior to human activity, about which less appears known. It is quite possible that ancestral humans had access to the earlier coconut prior to the domestication event several thousand years ago:
Quote:
Kenneth Olsen, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has received a $20,000 grant from the National Geographic Society to study the DNA of the plant, which can be used to infer historical relationships among populations. The work will be done in collaboration with Bee Gunn, a research specialist at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Portable nutrition
“The coconut played a crucial role in the history of human exploration and dispersal across the tropics, and it continues to play a fundamental role in human societies today,” said Olsen. “As a portable source of nutrition and water, the coconut was critical for humans to be able to voyage, establish trade routes, and colonize lands in the Pacific Rim, coastal India, Africa and South America.
“Our preliminary DNA sequence data show genetic variation within the coconut, and this is key to delineating historical relationships among different populations.
“Fossil data indicate that the coconut underwent an ancient dispersal event that predates human activity. This early dispersal is expected to have created a genetic signature that can be traced by examining the genetic structure of plants sampled across the species range.
Superimposed on this ancient ‘phylogeographic’ structure is the more recent history of human dispersal, cultivation and domestication,” Olsen continued.
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http://phys.org/news105629196.html
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