Asian wild rice ( Oryza rufipogon ) that ranges widely across the eastern and southern part of Asia is recognized as the direct ancestor of cultivated Asian rice ( O. sativa ). Studies of the geographic structure of O. rufipogon , based on chloroplast and low‐copy nuclear markers, reveal a possible phylogeographic signal of subdivision in O. rufipogon . However, this signal of geographic differentiation is not consistently obs...

Understanding how crop species spread and are introduced to new areas provides insights into the nature of species range expansions. The domesticated species Oryza sativa or Asian rice is one of the key domesticated crop species in the world. The island of Madagascar off the coast of East Africa was one of the last major Old World areas of introduction of rice after the domestication of this crop species and before extensive h...