Wheat and Barley Genetics and Pathology Open access

Evolutionary dynamics of the Timopheevii wheat lineage

Laxman Adhikari, Emile Cavalet-Giorsa, Michaël Abrouk, Dal‐Hoe Koo and 16 more

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) | Jul 23, 2026

Abstract

Abstract

Wheat, the most widely cultivated crop globally, includes multiple species with varying ploidy levels 1 . Globally cultivated species such as pasta and bread wheat belong to the Emmer lineage. In contrast, the Timopheevii lineage is of negligible agricultural significance 2 , yet it harbours genetic diversity of potential value for wheat improvement. Here, we present genomic resources for the Timopheevii wheat lineage. Our analyses uncovered extensive homoeologous exchange and genome instability in zhukovsky’s wheat, the hexaploid representative of the Timopheevii lineage. Population genomic analyses reveal a mosaic-like haplotype composition of domesticated tetraploid timopheev’s wheat, suggesting it was once cultivated across a broader geographic range. This is further supported by the discovery of ‘fossil’ haplotype segments in bread wheat landraces, likely derived from now-extinct domesticated timopheev’s wheat populations. By examining the Timopheevii lineage, we provide new insights into the evolutionary dynamics of wheat, discovering previously underexplored and potentially useful genetic diversity for wheat improvement.

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Authors

Researchers on this paper

Laxman Adhikari

first | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | ORCID 0000-0001-9507-5117

Emile Cavalet-Giorsa

middle | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | ORCID 0000-0001-6619-5996

Michaël Abrouk

middle | VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology | ORCID 0000-0001-9082-1432

Dal‐Hoe Koo

middle | Kansas State University | ORCID 0000-0003-4578-8519

Samara Mireza Correia De Lemos

middle | Technical University of Munich | ORCID 0000-0003-3484-1943

Thomas Lux

middle | Helmholtz Munich | ORCID 0000-0002-5543-1911

Georg Haberer

middle | Helmholtz Munich | ORCID 0000-0002-6612-6939

Vitaly Portnoy

middle | University of Haifa | ORCID 0000-0003-1130-6788

Adil Salhi

middle | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | ORCID 0000-0001-8756-2484

Xin Gao

middle | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | ORCID 0000-0002-7108-3574

Péter Mikó

middle | HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research

István Molnár

middle | HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research | ORCID 0000-0002-3624-3077

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Citation

BibTeX

@article{Adhikari2026Evolutionary,
  title = {Evolutionary dynamics of the Timopheevii wheat lineage},
  author = {Laxman Adhikari and Emile Cavalet-Giorsa and Michaël Abrouk and Dal‐Hoe Koo and Samara Mireza Correia De Lemos and Thomas Lux and Georg Haberer and Vitaly Portnoy and Adil Salhi and Xin Gao and Péter Mikó and István Molnár and Nathalie Rodde and John Raupp and Hakan Özkan and M. Spannagl and Nadia Kamal and Assaf Distelfeld and Jesse Poland and Simon G. Krattinger},
  journal = {bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.64898/2026.07.20.739399},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.20.739399}
}

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