Similarities and Differences in Response to Weeds By Teosinte and Modern Corn Varieties.

Modern corn (Zea mays) was derived by human selection from teosinte (Zea luxurians), a weedy C4 grass that generally produces multiple tillers with grain produced at the tips of the stalks. Following domestication and sub-speciation, corn was primarily intercropped with beans and squash. Recent selection of corn for production in monoculture has resulted in adaptations to monoculture growth such as upright leaves and likely alterations in photosynthetic processes. However, corn was primarily intercropped through much of its evolution, it is possible that modern varieties have lost or have significantly altered their ability to tolerate interspecies competition. Weeds, like intercropped species, alters the expression of genes in corn. Here, we use a transcriptomics approach to investigate the response to weeds of modern corn and it weedy progenitor. We will present data that identifies signaling pathways and processes that are impacted by weed competition in both corn and teosinte, and also signaling pathways and responses that have diverged in these two species as corn was domesticated and subsequently adapted to a monoculture production system.