Preserving Maize Genetic Diversity

Topic

Resource Type

Level

High School — General High School — AP/IB College

Duration

00:09:09

Description

This video follows germplasm bank coordinator Cristian Zavala Espinosa and geneticist Sarah Hearne, who are part of the global effort to preserve the genetic diversity of maize (corn).

Zavala Espinosa and his colleagues at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo or CIMMYT) in Mexico protect the diversity of maize by storing seeds and cataloging more than 28,000 different native varieties. Researchers such as Hearne use valuable genetic information about the maize stored here to identify genetic traits that may protect maize crops as climates shift.

An audio descriptive version of the film is available via our media player.

Key Terms

agriculture, allele frequency, genome, germination, Indigenous farming, nucleotide, seed bank, selective breeding, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), teosinte

Primary Literature

Gates, Daniel J., Dan Runcie, Garret M. Janzen, Alberto Romero Navarro, Martha Wilcox, Kai Sonder, Samantha J. Snodgrass, et al. 2019. “Single-gene resolution of locally adaptive genetic variation in Mexican maize.” Preprint, submitted July 18, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1101/706739.