Today, the D. rotundata yam species is vegetatively propagated. However, the nucleotide diversity loss associated with domestication is relatively modest: the cultivated sample had 26% and 36% diversity loss respectively relative to D. abyssinica and D. praehensilis. In out-crossing species like pearl millet and maize, diversity losses of 32%  and 35%  were reported. In self-pollinating species, the diversity loss can be much higher, for example, 62% in barley , and 70% in wheat . The loss of diversity observed in our study is more similar to outcrossing crops. We do not know when the transition from an outcrossing crop to a preferentially vegetative crop occurred. It is likely that during the first step of domestication, the crop reproduced mainly through seed. Even today, the reproduction system of D. rotundata is not purely vegetative [13, 52], and some cultivated varieties were found to have been recently obtained by cross-pollination. So, this modest loss of diversity is not surprising.