Summary We review the evolution of domestic animals, emphasizing the effect of the earliest steps of domestication on its course. Using the first domesticated species, the dog (Canis familiaris) as an illustration, we describe the evolutionary specificities of the historical domestication, such as the high level and wide range of diversity. We suggest that the process of earliest domestication via unconscious and later conscious selection of human-defined behavioral traits may accelerate phenotypic variations. The review is based on the results of the long-term experiment designed to reproduce early mammalian domestication in the silver fox (Vulpes vulpes) selected for tameability, or amenability to domestication. We describe changes in behavior, morphology and physiology that appeared in the fox during its selection for tameability and that were similar to those observed in the domestic dog. Based on the experimental fox data and survey of relevant data, we discuss the developmental, genetic and possible molecular-genetic mechanisms of these changes. We assign the causative role in evolutionary transformation of domestic animals to selection for behavior and to the neurospecific regulatory genes it affects.
During the second part of the 20th century, Belyaev selected tame and aggressive foxes (Vulpes vulpes), in an effort known as the “farm-fox experiment”, to recapitulate the process of animal domestication. Using these tame and aggressive foxes as founders of segregant backcross and intercross populations we have employed interval mapping to identify a locus for tame behavior on fox chromosome VVU12. This locus is orthologous to, and therefore validates, a genomic region recently implicated in canine domestication. The tame versus aggressive behavioral phenotype was characterized as the first principal component (PC) of a PC matrix made up of many distinct behavioral traits (e.g. wags tail; comes to the front of the cage; allows head to be touched; holds observer’s hand with its mouth; etc.). Mean values of this PC for F1, backcross and intercross populations defined a linear gradient of heritable behavior ranging from tame to aggressive. The second PC did not follow such a gradient, but also mapped to VVU12, and distinguished between active and passive behaviors. These data suggest that 1) there are at least two VVU12 loci associated with behavior; 2) expression of these loci is dependent on interactions with other parts of the genome (the genome context) and therefore varies from one crossbred population to another depending on the individual parents that participated in the cross.
A meiotic linkage map is essential for mapping traits of interest and is often the first step toward understanding a cryptic genome. Specific strains of silver fox (a variant of the red fox, Vulpes vulpes), which segregate behavioral and morphological phenotypes, create a need for such a map. One such strain, selected for docility, exhibits friendly dog-like responses to humans, in contrast to another strain selected for aggression. Development of a fox map is facilitated by the known cytogenetic homologies between the dog and fox, and by the availability of high resolution canine genome maps and sequence data. Furthermore, the high genomic sequence identity between dog and fox allows adaptation of canine microsatellites for genotyping and meiotic mapping in foxes. Using 320 such markers, we have constructed the first meiotic linkage map of the fox genome. The resulting sex-averaged map covers 16 fox autosomes and the X chromosome with an average inter-marker distance of 7.5 cM. The total map length corresponds to 1480.2 cM. From comparison of sex-averaged meiotic linkage maps of the fox and dog genomes, suppression of recombination in pericentromeric regions of the metacentric fox chromosomes was apparent, relative to the corresponding segments of acrocentric dog chromosomes. Alignment of the fox meiotic map against the 7.6x canine genome sequence revealed high conservation of marker order between homologous regions of the two species. The fox meiotic map provides a critical tool for genetic studies in foxes and identification of genetic loci and genes implicated in fox domestication.[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.]The silver fox is a coat color variant of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) (Nes et al. 1988). In nature, the red fox has a wider geographical distribution than any other Carnivora species, inhabiting ecological zones ranging from tundra to desert, and demonstrates remarkable variation in size and morphology (Nowak 1991;Sheldon 1992;MacDonald and Reynolds 2004). Multiple genetically determined coat color phenotypes have been maintained in farm-raised foxes since the early twentieth century (Nes et al. 1988;Vage et al. 1997). Although bred in captivity, farm-bred foxes normally exhibit a pattern of aggressive, fear-aggressive, and avoidance behavior toward humans. At the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ICG) the silver fox was chosen as a model for experimental domestication. Starting with a large commercial population, foxes were selected for tame behavior for over 45 generations to produce a strain with behavioral responses to humans like those of domestic dogs (Belyaev 1969(Belyaev , 1979Trut 1980Trut , 1999Trut , 2001Trut et al. 2004). In parallel, selection for aggressive behavior produced extremely aggressive and difficult-to-handle animals (see http:// cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behaviour/index.html). Domesticated foxes are eager to establish human contact from a very early age (Trut 1999). Like dogs, they develop a close attachment to...
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