Oryza nivara

Oryza nivara is a wild progenitor of the cultivated rice Oryza sativa. It is found growing in swampy areas, at edge of pond and tanks, beside streams, in ditches, in or around rice fields. Grows in shallow water up to 0.3 metres (1 ft 0 in), in seasonally dry and open habitats.

It is an annual, short to intermediate height (usually <2 metres (6 ft 7 in)) grass; panicles usually compact, rarely open; spikelets large, 6–10.4 millimetres (0.24–0.41 in) long and 1.9–3.4 millimetres (0.075–0.134 in) wide, with strong awn (4–10 centimetres (1.6–3.9 in) long); anthers 1.5–3 millimetres (0.059–0.118 in) long.

Distribution

Its distribution includes Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Genome

The genome of O. nivara was first sequenced in 2015.

Stein et al., 2018 sequence the genomes of O. nivara and other domesticated and wild relatives. They produce reference assemblies and analyze for divergence time and genetic distance. (The O. nivara assembly is 338Mb.) They demonstrate that species and Oryza sativa indica are most closely related and that the same is true for Oryza sativa japonica and Oryza rufipogon.

References

1. Oryza rufipogon
2. Parallel speciation
3. History of rice cultivation
4. Indus Valley Civilisation
5. Rice
6. Silent Valley National Park
7. List of sequenced plastomes