Aïssata Mamadou

TL;DR: A significantly lower number of alleles and lower gene diversity in cultivated pearl millet accessions than in wild accessions is shown, which contrasts with a previous study using iso-enzyme markers showing similar genetic diversity between cultivated and wild pearl Millet populations.

TL;DR: No erosion of varietal diversity was noted on a national scale during the period covered and this highlights that farmers’ management can preserve the diversity of millet and sorghum varieties in Niger despite recurrent and severe drought periods and major social changes.

TL;DR: The geographical situation of Niger, where typical western African, central African and eastern Sahelian African sorghum races converge, explained the high observed genetic diversity and was responsible for the interactions among the ethnic, geographical and botanical structure revealed in this study.

TL;DR: Results suggest that farmers’ management has globally preserved sorghum genetic diversity in Niger, which was submitted to recurrent drought period and to major social changes during these last decades.

TL;DR: The genomic diversity of sorghum from Niger is characterized and genomic regions conferring local adaptation to agroclimatic zones and farmer preferences are identified, which could facilitate genomics-assisted breeding of locally adapted and farmer-preferred Sorghum varieties for Niger.