A recent study in PLoS
Genetics claims that dogs and wolves evolved from a common ancestor
between 9,000 and 34,000 years ago. This dates back to before humans transition
to agricultural societies which contradicts previous notions that early farmers
adopted docile, friendly wolves that would later become our domesticated
companions. It is believed that the earliest dogs may have lived among
hunter-gatherer societies thus adapting to agricultural life later.
The team behind this study used the highest quality genome
sequences to date from three grey wolves. They chose one wolf from China,
Croatia and Israel because these regions represent where dogs are believed to
have originated. They then compared these sequences to those of a basenji,
which originates in central Africa, and a dingo from Australia. These breeds
were chosen because both of these locations are isolated from modern wolf
populations.
Their analysis of the different genomes revealed that the
dog breeds were more closely related to each other rather than to the wolves.
Likewise, the wolves genomes were also more closely related to each other than to the
dogs. This indicates that instead of the dogs being closely related to one of
the wolf lineages, or each dog being related to its closest geographic
counterpart, (i.e. the basenji and Israeli wolf, or the dingo and the Chinese
wolf), they may have descended from an extinct, wolf ancestor common to both
species. It can now be said that it’s none of these three wolves that dogs are most closely related to because these are wolves that diverged in
the recent past. It most likely is something more ancient that isn’t well
represented by today’s wolves.
The history of the domestication of dogs has always been of
interest to me and to find out that dogs are less related to modern wolves
than we thought really makes the domestication process of canines much more
complex. This study suggests that the genetic overlap between some modern dog
breeds and wolves is the result of interbreeding after dog domestication, not
just a simple direct line of decent from one group of wolves. Even more
intriguing to me because as a husky owner I always wanted to believe my dog was
more closely related to wolves than other breeds but this and other studies
have stated that is simply not the case.
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I find this article really interesting because it shows how biology, specifically genetics, is always changing. Research that was done many years ago is not still valid today as new research disproves past theories and conclusions. In the future I feel as if a lot of the science we learn today will no longer be valid as information base continues to grow, the shared common between the wolf and the dog being just one example of this ongoing change.
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ReplyDeleteI clicked on this article because I love dogs and I was really curious if wolves were closely related to dogs genetically. When a dog acts wild, somebody usually makes a comment that it's just bringing out the wolf in them. My friend that works with dogs all the time said that you can easily tell the difference when a regular dog comes in and a wolf hybrid (behavior and physical appearance) comes in, so it wasn't a surprise to me when they didn't find any genetic evidence of any relation between each other. What intrigued me the most was the possibility of a missing link where there might have been an extinct wolf species in the evolution of dogs. But I guess we'll see when more research is published. All in all this was a very interesting topic and a good choice for the blog!
ReplyDeleteI am an animal lover, and a huge fan of dogs, so this blog sparked my interest. I think everyone likes to think that dogs are closely related to wolves for the "cool" factor, but I knew that this was not true. I did some own research to see the regulations of owning a wolf hybrid dog as a pet and I found interesting information on this site http://www.hybridlaw.com/index_test.php?state=NJ
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