2015/12/17 by Zhenxin Fan, Pedro Silva, Ilan Gronau +16 · 16 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Immunology and Microbiology · #Human-Animal Interaction Studies #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Rabies epidemiology and control
paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/gr.197517.115
openalex publication_date 2015/12/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is a widely distributed top predator and ancestor of the domestic dog. To address questions about wolf relationships to each other and dogs, we assembled and analyzed a data set of 34 canine genomes. The divergence between New and Old World wolves is the earliest branching event and is followed by the divergence of Old World wolves and dogs, confirming that the dog was domesticated in the Old World. However, no single wolf population is more closely related to dogs, supporting the hypothesis that dogs were derived from an extinct wolf population. All extant wolves have a surprisingly recent common ancestry and experienced a dramatic population decline beginning at least ∼30 thousand years ago (kya). We suggest this crisis was related to the colonization of Eurasia by modern human hunter-gatherers, who competed with wolves for limited prey but also domesticated them, leading to a compensatory population expansion of dogs. We found extensive admixture between dogs and wolves, with up to 25% of Eurasian wolf genomes showing signs of dog ancestry. Dogs have influenced the recent history of wolves through admixture and vice versa, potentially enhancing adaptation. Simple scenarios of dog domestication are confounded by admixture, and studies that do not take admixture into account with specific demographic models are problematic.