Domestication and comparative psychology: Status and strategy.

Abstract

Study of animal domestication lacks a conceptual framework to integrate genetic and environmental factors into a coherent theory of domestic phenotypes, and reseachers have conceptually and experimentally separated the contributions of these influences. We critically examine genetic and environmental approaches to domestication and describe an alternative, developmental systems approach. In this view, domestic phenotypes are not transmitted in the genes nor contained in features of captive environments but are constructed by coaction of organic, organismic, and environmental factors during ontogeny. Thus, animals are similar or not in the expression of phenotypic traits, not because they share or lack similar genes, but because they share or lack similar developmental systems. This view of heredity and development directs attention to the animal-context transaction and includes many variables that have been omitted from analyses of domestication.

Developmental Dynamics: Toward a Biologically Plausible Evolutionary Psychology.

“…This is unfortunate, as the psychological sciences have much to offer in the forging of theories of the epigenetic regulation of development and evolution (see Gottlieb, 1991Johnston & Edwards, 2002;Lickliter & Ness, 1990, for examples).…”

The aims and accomplishments of comparative psychology

“…Differences in physical (body weight, endocrine responses) and behavioral (fearfulness) measures have consistently been observed between groups of rats whose mothers (Denenberg & Whimbey, 1963;Francis, Diorio, Liu, & Meaney, 1999;Whimbey & Denenberg, 1967) or grandmothers (Denenberg & Rosenberg, 1967) were handled or not handled as infants. Despite its obvious importance to both developmental and evolutionary concerns, this type of transgenerational effect on both physiological responsiveness (in particular, the development of the hypothalamic adrenocortical system) and behavioral responsiveness (in particular, emotional regulation) remains poorly understood, and comparative psychology has much to contribute in this area, particularly to exploring how previous developmental outcomes and current experiences in specific contexts combine to influence these transgenerational processes (Lickliter & Ness, 1990). For example, Hofer and colleagues (e.g., Skolnick, Ackerman, Hofer, & Weiner, 1980) provided detailed analysis of the prenatal factors contributing to transgenerational vulnerability to gastric ulceration in rats.…”

Developmental evolution and the origins of phenotypic variation

“…Of course, the change from free-living to captivity for most species is typically accompanied by changes in the availability of not only shelter, but also space, food and water, predation, and possibilities for social interaction (76). The influence of such changes on the nature and range of phenotypic change under domestication remains relatively unexplored (75).…”

“…In other words, the realization of new phenotypes typically requires a change in normal or usual developmental resources and circumstances that ordinarily function to constrain development along speciestypical trajectories. The phenomenon of domestication, the process by which organisms change in terms of morphology, physiology, or behavior as a result of the human control of their breeding, feeding, and care (73), provides an informative example of the role of distributed developmental resources in the complex dynamics involved in phenotypic change within and across generations (74)(75)(76).…”