Arctic-adapted dogs emerged at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition
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Mikkel-Holger S Sinding Shyam Gopalakrishnan Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal Marc de Manuel Vladimir V Pitulko Lukas Kuderna Tatiana R Feuerborn Laurent AF Frantz Filipe G Vieira Jonas Niemann Jose A Samaniego Castruita Christian Carøe Emilie U Andersen-Ranberg Peter D Jordan Elena Y Pavlova Pavel A Nikolskiy Aleksei K Kasparov Varvara V Ivanova Eske Willerslev Pontus Skoglund Merete Fredholm Sanne Eline Wennerberg Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen Rune Dietz Christian Sonne Morten Meldgaard Love Dalén Greger Larson Bent Petersen Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén Lutz Bachmann Øystein Wiig Tomas Marques-Bonet Anders J Hansen M Thomas P Gilbert Toggle all authors (35)
Abstract
Although sled dogs are one of the most specialized groups of dogs, their origin and evolution has received much less attention than many other dog groups. We applied a genomic approach to investigate their spatiotemporal emergence by sequencing the genomes of 10 modern Greenland sled dogs, an ~9500-year-old Siberian dog associated with archaeological evidence for sled technology, and an ~33,000-year-old Siberian wolf. We found noteworthy genetic similarity between the ancient dog and modern sled dogs. We detected gene flow from Pleistocene Siberian wolves, but not modern American wolves, to present-day sled dogs. The results indicate that the major ancestry of modern sled dogs traces back to Siberia, where sled dog-specific haplotypes of genes that potentially relate to Arctic adaptation were established by 9500 years ago.
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Publisher website (DOI) 10.1126/science.aaz8599
Europe PubMed Central 32587022
Pubmed 32587022
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