Domesticación, diversidad y recursos genéticos y genómicos de México: El caso de las calabazas

The domestication of plants and animals allows the study of different evolutionary processes, including selection, adaptation and speciation. Here we describe recent advances in the study of pumpkins and squashes, which constitute the genus Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae), being a group of herbaceous plants from the Americas that include between 12 and 15 species. Cucurbita has had six domestication events, four of them occurred in Mexico. This is a relatively recent genus that originated in North America 16 million years ago and its cultivated species maintain high levels of genetic variation. Cucurbita pepo is the species with the highest genetic diversity, diversity associated to two independent domestications, one in Northern Mexico and the other in Southern United States. In another species, Cucurbita argyrosperma, the populations from Yucatan Peninsula represents a genetic pool differentiated from the rest of the species. The study of the genome of C. argyrosperma and related taxa has revealed the regions of its genome associated with domestication. The populations of the species of this genus represent a source of important genetic resources in the face of climate change and constitute a good system for the study of domestication and of different evolutionary processes.