Ecological and genetic modifications accompanying crop domestication: dynamics and consequences of crop-wild hybridization:

In collaboration with Patrice David, Gilles Grisard, Doyle McKey. 

I have been investigating this issue using cassava and its closest wild relative, Manihot esculenta ssp. flabellifolia. Reproductive isolation is not complete between the two taxa, which readily hybridize in nature, even outside the area of domestication. This phenomenon is recent, as the crop has only recently been planted in sympatry with its wild relative, due to low land availability. The dynamics of hybridization differ among sites, and understanding which factors are responsible for such variation is a challenge both for crop management and for the preservation of the wild species.

Cassava's wild progenitor (Manihot esculenta ssp. flabellifolia, to the right) and a crop/wild hybrid (to the left).