Crop Circle Genetics

Cereals (wheat, maize and rice) are all types of ‘grasses’ but 100 million years of evolution, and 10,000 years of selective breeding, have produced crop plants that look very different, even to the untrained eye. However, at the level of their genetics modern cereals are very similar. These similarities are made clear by the use of circular genetic maps that visualise the relationships between the modern cereals and their 100 million year old ancestor.

Crop Circle Genetics showed how circular genetic maps have not only demonstrated that cereals contain very similar genes, but how, during evolution, large blocks of these genes have been reorganised and moved around in the different cereals.

How the Crop Circle Genetic maps work. The genetic maps of the cereals are arranged in concentric circles – the smallest map (rice) in the centre and the largest (wheat) on the outside. If you align one gene found in the different species then equivalent blocks of genetic information in the different species will all be aligned - the same sectors of the circle contain the same genetic information.