Relationships of cereal crops and other grasses

Relationships of cereal crops and other grasses

Elizabeth A. Kellogg*

Harvard University Herbaria, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

Abstract

The grass family includes some 10,000 species, and it encompasses tremendous morphological, physiological, ecological, and genetic diversity. The phylogeny of the family is becoming increasingly well understood. There were two major radiations of grasses, an early diversification leading to the subfamilies Pooideae, Bambusoideae, and Oryzoideae, and a later one leading to Panicoideae, Chloridoideae, Centothecoideae, and Arundinoideae. The phylogeny can be used to determine the direction of changes in genome arrangement and genome size.

Footnotes

↵ * To whom reprint requests should be addressed. e-mail: tkellogg{at}oeb.harvard.edu.
This paper was presented at a colloquium entitled “Protecting Our Food Supply: The Value of Plant Genome Initiatives,” organized by Michael Freeling and Ronald L. Phillips, held June 2–5, 1997, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.
ABBREVIATIONS:

GBSSI,

granule-bound starch synthase I;

ITS,

internal transcribed spacer of rRNA