Plant domestication through an ecological lens

• Ecology is an underexploited science in the study of crop evolution.
• A framework is provided to analyze ecological causes and effects of domestication.
• Single traits and whole phenotypes react to natural selection under cultivation.
• Domesticates exert relevant effects on ecosystem processes and co-occurring species.

Our understanding of domestication comes largely from archeology and genetics. Here, we advocate using current ecological theory and methodologies to provide novel insights into the causes and limitations of evolution under cultivation, as well as into the wider ecological impacts of domestication. We discuss the importance of natural selection under cultivation, that is, the forces promoting differences in Darwinian fitness between plants in crop populations and of constraints, that is, limitations of diverse nature that, given values for trait X, shorten the range of variation of trait Y, during the domestication process. Throughout this opinion paper, we highlight how ecology can yield insight into the effects of domestication on plant traits, on crop feedback over ecological processes, and on how species interactions develop in croplands.