Phenotypic diversity in wild and cultivated melons (Cucumis melo)

Like many crops, cultivated melons present a very large phenotypic polymorphism compared with the low phenotypic polymorphism of wild melons. Domestication has not been intensively studied and the genetic control of domestication traits is still poorly understood. The results of the subsequent diversification and selection processes are the present day types of melons. Genetic control of a majority of the diversification traits is under recessive genetic control: sex expression, fruit shape, sutures, number of placentas, gelatinous sheath around the seeds, white flesh colour and so on. Other phenotypic traits are dominant (orange flesh colour, netting, yellow colour of mature fruit in the Amarillo type and so on) as are most of the disease resistances. Presence of the same traits in very different botanical groups can be the result of parallel evolution but also of intercrossing between groups and selection of preferred alleles. New results (genome sequencing) and methods will allow a better understanding of the genetic control of domestication and diversification.