Comparing commonly grown species and native varieties is a winning strategy for making the former more resilient and the latter more productive.

You all know tomatoes and potatoes. African eggplants, maybe not—but when ripe, they turn red just like tomatoes. The lulo, for its part, is an orange fruit with citrusy notes, which is why in Ecuador it’s called naranjilla, or “little orange.” The Andean pepino, on the other hand, has juicy flesh that makes it resemble a melon. Their sizes, colors, and flavors may vary, but all of these plants belong to the same taxonomic group. In fact, they represent some of the species sequenced to produce a remarkable collection of related genomes—remarkable because it aims to span the entire Solanum genus.

In scientific terms, a collective genome is called a pangenome. Until now, this approach had mainly been used to map the genetic diversity within a single species—such as multiple varieties of wheat, or people from around the world. The latest pangenome, published in Nature, however, goes a step further. It covers 22 species from the same genus, including the ones mentioned above (if you’re curious, their scientific names are: S. lycopersicum, S. tuberosum, S. aethiopicum, S. quitoense, and S. muricatum).

The potential of this work, led by an international team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, goes even further. The same strategy could be applied to other species and genera of agricultural interest. Understanding the evolutionary changes that shaped desirable traits—like yield, disease resistance, and resilience to environmental stress—could provide key insights to improve the food of the future, with the help of cutting-edge techniques like genome editing.

Even within the same genus (Solanum, in this case), there are significant differences in genome size. These are largely due to the activity of mobile genetic elements (retrotransposons), which have multiplied in some species more than others. To develop improved varieties, researchers also need to untangle “paralogs”—duplicated genes that have evolved new functions—adding another layer of complexity. To get a sense of the genetic diversity involved, consider that, according to Zachary Lippman and colleagues, only about 60% of genes are shared across all 22 species included in the Solanum pangenome—13 of which are indigenous species.

Particular attention has been given to the African eggplant (S. aethiopicum), which now also has its own dedicated pangenome. This includes 10 domesticated varieties and one related wild species (S. anguivi). The hope is that knowledge gathered from well-studied solanaceous crops, like tomatoes, will help speed up the improvement of African eggplants. And perhaps, beneficial mutations found in the less-studied species could help recover traits lost during the long process of breeding that led to today’s cultivars.

The ultimate goal is to combine the best of underutilized species (especially their resilience to stress, which is crucial in adapting to climate change) with the productivity of mainstream crops. Recovering some of the genetic and nutritional diversity that’s been lost—while still aiming for traits of commercial interest—could help reduce the global food system’s overdependence on a handful of monocultures. Today, it’s estimated that around 75% of the food consumed globally comes from just a dozen plant species. Only 250 crops are grown on a large scale, yet there are thousands of semi-domesticated and many more potentially edible species.

The hope, in short, is to kickstart a new wave of domestication—more diverse, more informed, and better suited to the challenges ahead.