Awn Reduction and the Domestication of Asian Rice: A Syndrome or Crop Improvement Trait? Although wild progenitors of Asian cultivated rice have long awns, they are shorter or absent in domesticated landraces and cultivars. Thus, one may wonder when and why such transition from awned to awnless has occurred, i.e., is the reduction of awns a domestication syndrome trait or a trait that emerged during crop improvement? The proponents of an evolutionary model of rice domestication consider the loss/reduction of seed dispersal aids as a key domestication syndrome trait, apart from the fixation of seed retention. We challenge this view by showing that early cultivators had incentives for selecting long awns before and even after the fixation of the non-shattering trait. This is because long awns prevented seed predation by animals and facilitated harvest by means of the basket-beating method, which implies that their presence improved yield and labor efficiency. Our arguments also reveal that awns perhaps have persisted long after domestication and even after the introduction of sickles. Taken together, the reduction of awns may not fit into a domestication syndrome trait, but it can most plausibly be considered as a crop improvement trait.

减少百日咳和亚洲水稻的驯化：是综合症还是作物改良性状？尽管亚洲栽培稻的野生祖先长有芒，但在驯养的地方品种和栽培品种中却较短或没有。因此，人们可能会想知道何时以及为什么发生了从芒草到无芒的这种转变，即芒草减少是驯化综合症特征还是在作物改良过程中出现的特征？水稻驯化进化模型的支持者认为，除固定种子外，种子分散助剂的损失/减少是关键的驯化综合症特征。我们通过证明早期耕种者在固定非破碎性状之前甚至之后有选择长芒的动机，从而对这一观点提出了质疑。这是因为长芒草可以防止动物捕食种子，并通过打篮方法促进收获，这意味着它们的存在提高了产量和劳动效率。我们的论点还表明，在驯化甚至引入镰刀之后，芒可能会持续很长时间。综上所述，减少芒篷可能不适合驯化综合症特征，但最有可能将其视为作物改良特征。