Origin and evolution of the octoploid strawberry genome

Cultivated strawberry emerged from the hybridization of two wild octoploid species, both descendants from the merger of four diploidprogenitor species into a single nucleus more than 1 million years ago. Here we report a near-complete chromosome-scale assembly for cultivated octoploid strawberry ( Fragaria × ananassa) and uncovered the origin and evolutionary processes that shaped this complex allopolyploid. We identified the extant relatives of each diploidprogenitor species and provide support for the North American origin of octoploid strawberry. We examined the dynamics among the four subgenomes in octoploid strawberry and uncovered the presence of a single dominant subgenome with significantly greater gene content, gene expression abundance, and biased exchanges between homoeologous chromosomes, as compared with the other subgenomes. Pathway analysisshowed that certain metabolomic and disease-resistance traits are largely controlled by the dominant subgenome. These findings and the reference genomeshould serve as a powerful platform for future evolutionary studies and enable molecular breedingin strawberry.