Crop Origins and Phylo Food
Crop Origins and Phylo Food databases are free and ready to use and can be found here.
Years ago I started compiling estimations of domestication dates of crop species from the literature. In several of our projects we needed tabular data of those estimations to be able to test hypotheses on, for example, whether the antiquity of domestication partly explained the phenotypic disparity between crops and their most likely wild progenitors. Then we also needed data on other descriptors of crop species, like their type of use, geographic locations of their putative origins, or phylogenetic affinities. Beginning in 2018 I decided to perform this compilation in a systematic way so that it was useful not only for our internal use but for everyone else. I started elaborating an inclusive working list of crops cultivated for food, which resulted in 866 crop species. Then I systematically reviewed the literature or other datasets for earliest estimations of cultivation and/or domestication, types of use, geographic origin and other descriptors, and built the Crop Origins database. In parallel, I fine-tuned a comprehensive phylogeny of the flowering plants for the 866 crop species (Phylo Food). Both resources were published in 2020, as paper, and as ready-to-use downloadable databases. Crop Origins and Phylo Food are updated regularly, as time and my capacity to keep up with new literature permit.
Crop Origins and Phylo Food databases are free and ready to use and can be found here.
Years ago I started compiling estimations of domestication dates of crop species from the literature. In several of our projects we needed tabular data of those estimations to be able to test hypotheses on, for example, whether the antiquity of domestication partly explained the phenotypic disparity between crops and their most likely wild progenitors. Then we also needed data on other descriptors of crop species, like their type of use, geographic locations of their putative origins, or phylogenetic affinities. Beginning in 2018 I decided to perform this compilation in a systematic way so that it was useful not only for our internal use but for everyone else. I started elaborating an inclusive working list of crops cultivated for food, which resulted in 866 crop species. Then I systematically reviewed the literature or other datasets for earliest estimations of cultivation and/or domestication, types of use, geographic origin and other descriptors, and built the Crop Origins database. In parallel, I fine-tuned a comprehensive phylogeny of the flowering plants for the 866 crop species (Phylo Food). Both resources were published in 2020, as paper, and as ready-to-use downloadable databases. Crop Origins and Phylo Food are updated regularly, as time and my capacity to keep up with new literature permit.