Newly Sequenced Genome Reveals Coffee's Prehistoric Story, and its Future Under Climate Change

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The key to growing coffee plants that can better resist climate change in the decades to come may lie in the ancient past.

Researchers co-led by the University at Buffalo have created what they say is the highest quality reference genome to date of the world's most popular coffee species, Arabica, unearthing secrets about its lineage that span millennia and continents.

Their findings, published in Nature Genetics, suggest that Coffea arabica developed more than 600,000 years ago in the forests of Ethiopia via natural mating between two other coffee species. Arabica's population waxed and waned throughout Earth's heating and cooling periods over thousands of years, the study found, before eventually being cultivated in Ethiopia and Yemen, and then spread over the globe.

"We've used genomic information in plants alive today to go back in time and paint the most accurate picture possible of Arabica's long history, as well as determine how modern cultivated varieties are related to each other," says the study's co-corresponding author, Victor Albert, Ph.D., Empire Innovation Professor in the UB Department of Biological Sciences, within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Coffee giants like Starbucks and Tim Hortons exclusively use beans from Arabica plants to brew the millions of cups of coffee they serve everyday, yet, in part due to a low genetic diversity stemming from a history of inbreeding and small population size, Arabica is susceptible to many pests and diseases and can only be cultivated in a few places in the world where pathogen threats are lower and climate conditions are more favorable.

"A detailed understanding of the origins and breeding history of contemporary varieties are crucial to developing new Arabica cultivars better adapted to climate change," Albert says.

[...] Arabica is the source of approximately 60% of the world's total coffee products, with its seeds helping millions start their day or stay up late. However, the initial crossbreeding that created it was done without any intervention from humans.

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