In which plants were first "domesticated"... or, how to make an Almond

Guns, Germs and Steel

By Jared Diamond

Published in 1999 by W.W. Norton and Company

New York, New York

Today’s Assigned Reading: Chapter 7 (p114 to 130)

Otherwise known as “How to make an Almond”

and

The Botany of Desire

By Michael Pollan

Published in 2001 by Random House

Today's Assigned Reading: The Introduction (pxii-xxv)

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is an approachable and engagingly written non-fiction book that does not require any background knowledge to understand. It tells of the many factors important in how different societies across the world and throughout time began, developed, progressed, and in some cases, fell. In Chapter 7, Diamond explains how plants were first domesticated and what factors lead to the rise of agriculture — literally, he tells us “How to make an Almond”.

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World is likewise an easily read and approachable work of non-fiction. In it, Michael Pollan profiles four plants — the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato — and tells us of their history, domestication and interrelation with people from the perspective of both the plants and the people.

The main point of these readings — and what I found most mind-blowing — was how the early domestication of plants by humans was driven primarily by the plants themselves.

Basically, the “domestication of plants” for human purposes did not arise from some smart human who took wild seeds and stuck them in the ground and watched to see what would happen. Nope, early “domestic” plants came about as a result of the influences that hunter-gatherers had upon the plants they gathered — and how these plants adapted to be better dispersed by the new animal in their environment.

That is to say, plants influenced people to domesticate them, to disperse their seeds and to increase their fitness in the exact same ways that plants influence all other animals, both now and historically (GGS, p116; BOD, pxv).

This elegant idea explains the origin of most of our current “domestic” plants. At the root of this explanation is the idea that humans are not the only ones to have "domesticated" plants. To explain what Diamond and Pollan means by this, I want to use the definition of domestication. According to Wikipedia (accessed on Jan 16th, 2012), “Domestication is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of artificial selection, is changed at the genetic level, accentuating traits desired by humans." However, if we rephrase this definition and make it less human-centric and broader in scope, we find that “domestication” implies that certain animals or plants are selected for and are changed as a result, based on what is desired by the forces or species doing the selecting.

Thus we can state that other animals “domesticate” plants, too!

For a human-driven example, imagine lettuce: it has been selected to have large crunchy and delectable leaves. We want large leaves, and so we select and propagate plants with the traits we want. But… what about birds? How, when a bird species selectively prefers “larger” or “bluer” berries, is this bird not domesticating this berry species to produce the traits that the bird “wants”?

Granted this is not a deliberate process and occurs through natural selection — that is, if large blue berries are preferentially eaten, over time these traits will increase as seeds from these berries will be dispersed at a greater rate and have greater reproductive success compared to those berries that are smaller and less blue. But, because the traits that the birds “wanted” increased in frequency, can we not, according to the definition above, consider these birds to be domesticating these plants, too?

Or what about bees. Imagine if you will, that bees prefer to collect nectar from red flowers more so than yellow ones. This, over time, would result in an increase in the overall prevalence of red flowers, because they are being selected for and thus experience higher pollination rates and will set more seed!

Thus based on these examples of natural selection, we can say that plants are being "domesticated" by the birds and the bees, too.

Therefore I suggest that we humans get off our high and mighty horse named “superior species” — we have not domesticated plants; they have manipulated us into spreading their seeds around! That is to say, as plant populations adapted to express certain traits preferred by humans (based upon human-imposed selection pressures), those plants’ fitness increased exponentially as their seeds were spread across our farms and fields.

Thus I very much like Pollan's idea that our relationship with plants is not one of superiority or dominance, but rather one of mutual survival (BOD, pxviii). Without our “domestic” plants, we cannot survive, and without our help, our "domesticated" plants cannot enjoy the high level of fitness and world-wide growth that they do now!

So I want to say that long ago, perhaps without either side even being aware of it, some plants and a few people entered a contract; an alliance. While each gave up something (people their independence and free-ranging nature as hunter-gatherers, and plants their ability to grow in the wild), each would help the other become the most dominant species of their respective kingdoms on the planet today.

This is an amazingly different and perhaps a unique way to look at plants — and one definitely worth exploring.