And more A hundred ways to prepare potatoes, thousands of stories begin, starting with vodka distilled from this tuber. For centuries, potatoes have been feeding the world’s growing population. According to a study, the introduction of potatoes from America accounts for about a quarter of the population growth in the Old World, between 1700 and 1900.
Now, science reveals the surprising origins of vegetables: it appeared 9 million years ago due to the abnormal hybridization between the ancestors of tomatoes and ancient South American plants. This revelation rewrites the evolutionary history of one of the most extensive foods in the world and explains how simple tubers become the backbone of global diets.
To date, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have conducted the most extensive genomic analysis. They studied cultivars and 44 wild species and performed unprecedented genetic sequencing. The results show that a stable mixture of genetic material Ovarian nodule (Traditional potato) and Sol-like lysates (tomato).
This discovery suggests that the potatoes we know today originate from ancient tomato plants and other hybridization processes eggplant– Species related to it emenberosum Until then, the family did not produce tubers. The results have been published in the “Unit” magazine.
Potatoes and tomatoes have common ancestors who lived about 13 million years ago. Four million years later, their descendants successfully dated. From this union a new plant has emerged with the ability to form tubers: subway structures that store energy in the form of carbohydrates and allow reproduction without seeds or pollination. This biological innovation has facilitated the expansion of the first potatoes in a variety of climates from warm to cold environments.
The study also identified genetic details. The SP6A gene considers the “switch” that determines whether a plant will develop a tuber from tomatoes. On the other hand, the IT1 gene that regulates the growth of subway stems to form edible tubers comes from emenberosum Family, local to South America.
By considering the age of hybridization and the geographical location of the species involved, the researchers put forward hypotheses about the origin of potatoes. During the Miocene, a sudden geological rise in the Andes, driven by the collision of two tectonic plates, created a new cold climate zone of the region 100 to 6 million years ago. Scientists believe that this geological change forces plants to adapt to survival and expansion, where two people form together Ovarian nodulemillions of years later, will eventually accompany your hamburger in the form of fries.
This story originally appeared in wired español and has been translated into Spanish.
