Citrus fruits from the mandarin family are popular throughout the world for their tasty and healthy characteristics. Within Japan, the tiny shiikuwasha and the ornamental tachibana are of special cultural and historical importance. However, the origin of these two varieties, and other East Asian citrus, was always something of a mystery, until now.
In a new study, published in Nature Communications, scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), and collaborators from other institutes, analyzed 69 genomes from the East Asian mandarin family, alongside their mainland Asian relatives, to reveal a far-ranging story of isolation, long-distance travel, and hybridization.
The story starts in the Hunan Province of southern China, which is the center of wild mandarin diversity and the genetic source of most well-known mandarins. When the scientists re-analyzed previously published genomic data, they unexpectedly found that wild mandarins of this mountainous region are split into two subspecies. [Read more…] about Juicy past of favorite Okinawan fruit revealed