Domestication through clandestine cultivation constrained genetic diversity in magic mushrooms relative to naturalized populations
Current Biology December 1, 2023 Alistair R. Mctaggart, Stephen Mclaughlin, Jason C. Slot et al. 6 citations
Domestication of the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe cubensis for psilocybin production has led to inbreeding and selfing in commercial cultivars, reducing genetic diversity and heterozygosity. In contrast, a naturalized Australian population, likely introduced from an unknown origin, has recovered from a bottleneck and maintains high genetic diversity. Genome comparisons of 38 Australian isolates and 86 commercial cultivars revealed that cultivars have low effective population sizes, high linkage disequilibrium, and low allelic diversity in mating-compatibility genes, while the Australian population shows higher nucleotide and allelic diversity. The psilocybin gene cluster is nearly identical across most cultivars, but unique alleles in Australia and some cultivars may affect psilocybin biosynthesis.