any of a number of areas on the Earth from which arose important crop plants and domestic animals. As few as four of these centres of origin have probably provided the great majority of the most useful plants and animals: (1) tropical southeastern Asia—rice, chickens; (2) temperate southwestern Asia—wheat, sheep, goats, asses; (3) subtropical or temperate Mexico and Central America—corn (maize), turkeys; and (4) the central Andes of South America—potatoes, guinea pigs, llamas. Genecentres were located in mountainous regions in temperate and tropical climates that historically were areas of fairly high population.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "genecentre" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.