Local selection shaped the diversity of European maize landraces

Abstract

The introduction of populations to novel environments can lead to a loss of genetic diversity and the accumulation of deleterious mutations due to selection and demographic changes. We investigate how the recent introduction of maize to Europe shaped the genetic diversity and differentiation of European traditional maize populations and quantify the impact of its recent range expansion and consecutive breeding on the accumulation of genetic load. We use genome-wide genetic markers of almost 2,000 individuals from 38 landraces, 155 elite breeding lines and a large set of doubled haploid lines derived from two landraces to find extensive population structure within European maize, with landraces being highly differentiated even over short geographic distances. Yet, diversity change does not follow the continuous pattern of range expansions. Landraces maintain high genetic diversity that is distinct between populations and does not decrease along the possible expansion routes. Signals of positive selection in European landraces that overlap with selection in Asian maize suggest convergent selection during maize introductions. At the same time, environmental factors partially explain genetic differences across Europe. Consistent with the maintenance of high diversity, we find no evidence of genetic load accumulating along the maize introduction route in European maize. However, modern breeding likely purged highly deleterious alleles but accumulated genetic load in elite germplasm. Our results reconstruct the history of maize in Europe and show that landraces have maintained high genetic diversity that could reduce genetic load in the European maize breeding pools.