Jackal Genomes: What is the Ancestry of your Dog?

Most of us aren't thinking about our dog's genetic inheritance, but a recent study shows that stubborn domestication's in some breeds may now be more easily explained. According to researchers from the University of Chicago, modern dogs are closely related to an ancient wolf. 

"Dog domestication is more complex than we originally thought," said John Novembre, associate professor in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago and a senior author on the study, via a press release. "In this analysis we didn't see clear evidence in favor of a multi-regional model, or a single origin from one of the living wolves that we sampled. It makes the field of dog domestication very intriguing going forward." 

Fossil evidence shows that the domestication of canines date as far back as 33,000 years based on both the shape of the skull and DNA analysis.

While researchers know that dogs regularly lived with humans about 10,000 years ago, and dogs and people are found buried together as early as 14,000 years ago, genetic studies have linked their origination to places such as Europe, China and even the Middle East.

For the study, researchers gathered full gene sequences from a wolf in China, Israel and Croatia to encompass possible origin sites of dog domestication. They then sequenced genomes from an Australian dingo and an African basenji, neither of which have territories that overlap with the wolf. This allowed the researchers to look at a wide-range of post-domestication interbreeding.

As the team compared the genomes to an earlier sequenced one, the experts anticipated that at least one dog breed would be genetically related to one of the three wolf lineages. However, they found that both species were actually descendants of a common wolf-like ancestor. 

"One possibility is there may have been other wolf lineages that these dogs diverged from that then went extinct," Novembre said, via a press release. "So now when you ask which wolves are dogs most closely related to, it's none of these three because these are wolves that diverged in the recent past. It's something more ancient that isn't well represented by today's wolves."

Lastly, previous studies have shown that domestication of dogs may have helped push their genes to digest more starchy foods as a result of domestication.

More information regarding the study can be found via the journal PLOS Genetics.