P. van Rijckevorsel wrote:
"a_plutonium" schreef
I believe
the origins of potato are South America and the origins of tomato
somewhere in Africa.

***
An unfounded belief
* * *

A genomics of these two species should provide clues as to which came
first and whether
one is the ancestor of the other.

***
By definition, neither is the ancestor of the other.

Also, both are the product of a long process of breeding, that is artificial
selection. As opposed to evolution, based on natural selection.
PvR

You are wrong on this, based on the Llama and camel data. The Llama
and camel have an
ancient ancestor somewhere in Africa. And they crossed some land
bridge to South America
during the geological time of the Continental Drift of Africa away
from South America.

So when was this geological time period? I remember the Wegener thesis
amassing evidence
of genetic ancestors across Africa and South America but I do not
recall time scales of when
that took place.

Anyway, the camel and Llama have a common ancestor in Africa (or it
may be the other way
around). And that once the land bridges were broken then they evolved
their own separate ways.

So, likewise, noticing the very much similar traits and
characteristics of tomatoes and potatoes,
I reckon they both had one common ancestor, and probably originated in
Africa and probably
more like a tomato. And this tomato ancestor found its way across the
land bridge (what geological
time??) into South America. And due to the colder South American
climate in the mountains evolved
into the potato.

One year I noticed a tomato like fruit on one of my potato plants
growing above ground and looking
like a tomato. And I would not be surprized if anyone found a tomato
plant that seemed to grow tubers.

So I am suggesting that when the genome of the tomato and potato are
in and up and viewable and
up and running for analysis, that we maybe able to spot where in the
genome of the tomato were
mutations that eventually led to the species of potato. And that the
genome would tell us which
was alive first in geological time and thus eventually evolved and
created the other (I suspect the
tomato came first and created the potato.)

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies