Ice Age wolf DNA reveals dogs trace ancestry to two separate wolf populations

The ancestry of dogs can be traced to two populations of ancient wolves, according to an international group of geneticists and archaeologists. One of the biggest unanswered questions about human pre history is where dogs underwent domestication.

The domestication of dogs from the gray wolf is thought to have taken place 15,000 years ago. It's not known where this happened or if it happened in a single location or multiple locations.

Dogs and wolves have not been found to have the same genes.

The researchers looked at ancient wolf genomes in order to understand where the first dogs came from. They looked at the ancient wolf genomes from Europe, Siberia and North America.

Archaeologists from 38 different countries contributed to the study of the ancient wolves. A complete head from a wolf that lived over 30,000 years ago was included in the remains. Nine different ancient DNA labs worked together to create a data set from the wolves.

The researchers found that dogs are more similar to ancient wolves in Asia than they are in Europe.

Evidence was found that wolves contributed to dogs' genetic makeup. Dogs from north-eastern Europe, Siberia and the Americas seem to have a common origin. Dogs from the Middle East, Africa and southern Europe seem to have some ancestry from wolves in the eastern part of the world.

There is a chance that wolves underwent domestication more than once, with different populations mixing together. There is a chance that the dual ancestry is due to the early dogs mixing with wolves. It's not possible to tell which of these scenarios happened.

The Ancient Genomics lab at the Crick has increased the number of ancient wolf genomes and created a detailed picture of wolf ancestry.

Dogs derive their ancestry from at least two separate wolf populations, one of which contributed to all dogs and the other which contributed to some dogs.

The hunt for an ancient wolf ancestor of dogs could reveal more about where domestication took place. They are now looking at the genomes from other places not included in the study.

As the 72 ancient wolf genomes spanned around 30,000 generations, it was possible to trace the evolution of the wolf's genes.

Over the course of 10,000 years, one gene variant went from being very rare to being present in every wolf, and is still present in all dogs today. The variant is related to the development of bones in the skull and jaw. It is possible that the spread of this variant was caused by a change in the types of prey available during the Ice Age, giving an advantage to wolves with a certain head shape.

It is the first time that scientists have directly tracked natural selection in a large animal over a 100,000 year period.

The wolf species was highly connected over large distances, which made it possible for the whole wolf species to be affected. wolves were able to survive the Ice Age because of the connection

It could provide new information about how evolution happens.

There is a story

The materials were provided by the institute. The content can be edited for style and length.

There is a journal reference.

1. Anders Bergström, David W. G. Stanton, Ulrike H. Taron, Laurent Frantz, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Erik Ersmark, Saskia Pfrengle, Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, Ophélie Lebrasseur, Linus Girdland-Flink, Daniel M. Fernandes, Morgane Ollivier, Leo Speidel, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Michael V. Westbury, Jazmin Ramos-Madrigal, Tatiana R. Feuerborn, Ella Reiter, Joscha Gretzinger, Susanne C. Münzel, Pooja Swali, Nicholas J. Conard, Christian Carøe, James Haile, Anna Linderholm, Semyon Androsov, Ian Barnes, Chris Baumann, Norbert Benecke, Hervé Bocherens, Selina Brace, Ruth F. Carden, Dorothée G. Drucker, Sergey Fedorov, Mihály Gasparik, Mietje Germonpré, Semyon Grigoriev, Pam Groves, Stefan T. Hertwig, Varvara V. Ivanova, Luc Janssens, Richard P. Jennings, Aleksei K. Kasparov, Irina V. Kirillova, Islam Kurmaniyazov, Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, Pavel A. Kosintsev, Martina Lázničková-Galetová, Charlotte Leduc, Pavel Nikolskiy, Marc Nussbaumer, Cóilín O’Drisceoil, Ludovic Orlando, Alan Outram, Elena Y. Pavlova, Angela R. Perri, Małgorzata Pilot, Vladimir V. Pitulko, Valerii V. Plotnikov, Albert V. Protopopov, André Rehazek, Mikhail Sablin, Andaine Seguin-Orlando, Jan Storå, Christian Verjux, Victor F. Zaibert, Grant Zazula, Philippe Crombé, Anders J. Hansen, Eske Willerslev, Jennifer A. Leonard, Anders Götherström, Ron Pinhasi, Verena J. Schuenemann, Michael Hofreiter, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Beth Shapiro, Greger Larson, Johannes Krause, Love Dalén, Pontus Skoglund. Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs. Nature, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04824-9