Banana domestication
 

Hi All,

bit of a science question here.

i was wondering what polyploid hybrids are. From what I gather. We've moved from diploids to edible diploids to triploids through meiotic restitution. then to tetratriploids.

how do polyploids come into banana domestication over the last 7000 years?

thanks!

Re: Banana domestication
 

Polyploid simply means any ploidy level (number of sets of chromosomes) more than diploid (2 sets) which is considered the standard base level. Polyploids could be triploid, tetraploid, pentaploid, hexaploid...etc In banana, typically only diploid, triploid, or tetraploid are viable plants, higher polyploids don't usually result in healthy growing normal plants (this is just in banana, in other plants the rules are different).

Polyploids aren't really relevant to the core of banana domestication, which occurred solely among diploids, namely parthenocarpy. Layers of sterility on top of parthenocarpy was the next important step, some aspects of which are related to triploids, but it's far from the whole story as there are many mechanisms of sterility. Polyploids mainly have served to lead to plants which are more robust, and as a result most of the dominant global banana varieties are triploid, but there are countless many diploids as well. Naturally occurring tetraploids are rare, they do exist, but pretty much all of the ones commonly available are the results of modern breeding programs.