How Have Narrow-Leafed Lupin Genomic Resources Enhanced Our Understanding of Lupin Domestication?

Lupins provide an insightful model for plant domestication with five species domesticated over a wide range of time and geography. The most intensively studied species is narrow-leafed lupin, a twentieth-century domesticate where the addition of each successive domestication trait was documented in the scientific literature. Foundational to the advances made in our understanding of lupin domestication was the availability of excellent genetic resources: Well-annotated wild seed collections, published pedigrees of Australian narrow-leafed lupin cultivars and a suite of wild × domesticated cross populations. Rapid developments in genomic technologies culminating in the reference genome for narrow-leafed lupin have greatly increased our understanding of the origins of domesticated lupins, how diversity has been profoundly affected and the molecular control of domestication genes. This chapter provides an overview of our current understanding of lupin domestication and how this knowledge can equip lupin breeders to create more diverse and productive cultivars.