Prof. Dr. Markus Stetter

Rapidly changing environments require plant populations to adapt or face extinction. Crops and their domestication are an ideal model to study the genomic signatures of adaptation. Often adaptive traits are tightly linked to human history and different plant species show varying levels of domestication. We study the incomplete domestication of the pseudo-cereal grain amaranth, and the domestication and cultivation history of maize. To understand how complex traits adapt to changing environments, we combine population and quantitative genetic methods with molecular genetics. With our work we aim to understand how wild plants became crops and how these crops were able to spread across the globe.

1. Winkler TS, Vollmer SK, Dyballa-Rukes N, Metzger S, Stetter MG (2024) Isoform-resolved genome annotation enables mapping of tissue-specific betalain regulation in amaranth. New Phytol. doi: 10.1111/nph.19736.
2. Gonçalves-Dias J, Singh A, Graf C, Stetter MG (2023) Genetic Incompatibilities and Evolutionary Rescue by Wild Relatives Shaped Grain Amaranth Domestication. Mol Biol Evol 40(8). doi: 10.1093/molbev/msad177.
3. Samayoa LF, Olukolu BA, Yang CJ, Chen Q, Stetter MG, York AM, Sanchez-Gonzalez JJ, Glaubitz JC, Bradbury PJ, Romay MC, Sun Q, Yang J, Ross-Ibarra J, Buckler ES, Doebley JF, Holland JB (2021) Domestication reshaped the genetic basis of inbreeding depression in a maize landrace compared to its wild relative, teosinte. PLoS Genet 17(12):e1009797. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009797.
4. Lozano R, Gazave E, Dos Santos JPR, Stetter MG, Valluru R, Bandillo N, Fernandes SB, Brown PJ, Shakoor N, Mockler TC, Cooper EA, Taylor Perkins M, Buckler ES, Ross-Ibarra J, Gore MA (2021) Comparative evolutionary genetics of deleterious load in sorghum and maize. Nat Plants 7(1):17-24. doi: 10.1038/s41477-020-00834-5.
5. Gonçalves-Dias J, Stetter MG (2021) PopAmaranth: a population genetic genome browser for grain amaranths and their wild relatives. G3 (Bethesda) 11(7). doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkab103.
6. Stetter MG, Vidal-Villarejo M, Schmid KJ (2020) Parallel Seed Color Adaptation during Multiple Domestication Attempts of an Ancient New World Grain. Mol Biol Evol 37(5):1407-1419. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msz304.
7. Stetter MG, Thornton K, Ross-Ibarra J (2018) Genetic architecture and selective sweeps after polygenic adaptation to distant trait optima. PLoS Genet 14(11):e1007794. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007794.
8. Joshi DC, Sood S, Hosahatti R, Kant L, Pattanayak A, Kumar A, Yadav D, Stetter MG (2018) From zero to hero: the past, present and future of grain amaranth breeding. Theor Appl Genet 131(9):1807-1823. doi: 10.1007/s00122-018-3138-y.
9. Stetter MG, Schmid KJ (2017) Analysis of phylogenetic relationships and genome size evolution of the Amaranthus genus using GBS indicates the ancestors of an ancient crop. Mol Phylogenet Evol 109:80-92. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2016.12.029.
10. Stetter MG, Gates DJ, Mei W, Ross-Ibarra J (2017) How to make a domesticate. Curr Biol 27(17):R896-R900. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.048.