New insights into the history of domesticated and wild apricots and its contribution to Plum pox virus resistance ST  EPHANE DECROOCQ,* † AMANDINE CORNILLE, ‡ 1 DAVID TRICON,* † SEVDA BABAYEVA, § AUR  ELIE CHAGUE,* † JEAN-PHILIPPE EYQUARD,* † RAUL KARYCHEV, ¶ SVETLANA DOLGIKH, ¶ TATIANA KOSTRITSYNA,** 2 SHUO LIU, †† * † WEISHENG LIU, †† WENJUAN GENG, ‡‡ KANG LIAO, ‡‡ BAYRAM M. ASMA, §§ ZEYNAL AKPAROV, § TATIANA GIRAUD ¶¶ and V  ERONIQUE DECROOCQ* † *UMR 1332 BFP, Equipe de virologie, INRA, 71 Avenue Edouard Bourlaux, 33882 Villenave d’Ornon, France, †UMR 1332 BFP, CS20032, Universit  e de Bordeaux, 33882 Villenave d’Ornon, France, ‡Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Science for life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, §Genetic Resources Institute of ANAS, Azadlig ave. 155, AZ1106 Baku, Azerbaijan, ¶Kazakh Research Institute of Horticulture and Viticulture, 238-a Gagarin Avenue, 480060 Almaty, Kazakhstan, **Botanical Garden of National Academy of Sciences, Akhunbaeva street 1a, 720064 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, ††Liaoning Institute of Pomology, Tiedong Street, Xiongyue Town, Bayuquan District, Yingkou City, Liaoning 115009, China, ‡‡ College of Horticulture & Forestry Sciences, Xinjiang Agricultural University, 311 NongDaDong Road, 830052 Urumqi City, Xinjiang, China, §§Department of Horticulture, Inonu University, Malatya 44210, Turkey, ¶¶Ecologie Systematique Evolution, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, AgroParisTech, Universit  e Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France Abstract Studying domesticated species and their wild relatives allows understanding of the mechanisms of population divergence and adaptation, and identifying valuable genetic resources. Apricot is an important fruit in the Northern hemisphere, where it is threat- ened by the Plum pox virus (PPV), causing the sharka disease. The histories of apricot domestication and of its resistance to sharka are however still poorly understood. We used 18 microsatellite markers to genotype a collection of 230 wild trees from Central Asia and 142 cultivated apricots as representatives of the worldwide cultivated apricot germplasm; we also performed experimental PPV inoculation tests. The genetic mark- ers revealed highest levels of diversity in Central Asian and Chinese wild and culti- vated apricots, confirming an origin in this region. In cultivated apricots, Chinese accessions were differentiated from more Western accessions, while cultivated apricots were differentiated from wild apricots. An approximate Bayesian approach indicated that apricots likely underwent two independent domestication events, with bottle- necks, from the same wild population. Central Asian native apricots exhibited genetic subdivision and high frequency of resistance to sharka. Altogether, our results con- tribute to the understanding of the domestication history of cultivated apricot and point to valuable genetic diversity in the extant genetic resources of wild apricots. Keywords: fruit tree, pathogen, population structure, Prunus armeniaca, virus, wild progenitor Received 28 February 2016; revision received 14 July 2016; accepted 25 July 2016 Introduction Domestication is an evolutionary process by which humans produce, from wild species, populations with modified traits, by selecting individuals most suited to cultivation and consumption (Gerbault et al. 2014). Domestication often involves a loss of genetic diversity in crops relative to their wild progenitors (Glemin & Correspondence: V eronique Decroocq, Fax: +33 557122384; E-mail: decroocq@bordeaux.inra.fr and Tatiana Giraud, Fax: +33 169154697; E-mail: tatiana.giraud@u-psud.fr 1 Present address: Center for Adaptation to a Changing Envi- ronment, ETH Z€ urich, 8092 Z€ urich, Switzerland 2 Present address: International School of Medicine, 1 f, Street Intergelpo, 720054 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Molecular Ecology (2016) doi: 10.1111/mec.13772