The background selection hypothesis predicts a reduction in nucleotide site diversity and an excess of rare variants, owing to linkage associations with deleterious alleles. This effect is expected to be amplified in species that are predominantly self-fertilizing. To examine the predictions of the background selection hypothesis in self-fertilizing species, we sequenced 1,362 bp of adh1, a gen...

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) seeds are a rich source of ?-glucans that can help reduce blood serum cholesterol content in human diets. However, high levels this polysaccharide the causes inefficiencies such as slow lautering during brewing process due to higher wort viscosity. Thus, depending on end use, barley breeding programs have opposing goals with respect ?-glucan. Discovery new alleles fo...

The naturally occurring wild barley mutant eibi1/hvabcg31 suffers from severe water loss due to the permeable leaf cuticle. Eibi1/HvABCG31 encodes a full ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter, HvABCG31, playing a role in cutin deposition in the elongation zone of growing barley leaves. The eibi1 allele has pleiotropic effects on the appearance of leaves, plant stature, fertility, spike and gra...