1. Domestication
Brian O’Meara
EEB464 Fall 2018

2. Learning objectives What has been the history of domestication?
What traits change?
Why do traits change?
Can nonhuman organisms domesticate others?

3. Figure 4. A schematic representation of the results of the fox domestication experiment. A: Transformation of fox behavior resulting from selection for tameability. Left: a fox of the farm-bred population not selected for behavior. Foxes of this population show the typical aggressive response to humans. Right: a fox of the experimental domesticated population. The dog-like behavior of foxes of this population is the result of many years of selection for tameability. B–E: Activity of the HPA axis in farm-bred and domesticated foxes. Farm-bred foxes are shown in grey, the domesticated in red. B: Hypothalamic CRF (CRFmRNA/18SmRNA) and pituitary POMC (POMCmRNA/18SmRNA) gene expression, as well as ACTH (pg/ml) and cortisol (mg/dl) levels in farm-bred and domesticated foxes. C: Age-related changes in plasma cortisols level in farm-bred and domesticated foxes: 1) farm-bred foxes exhibiting aggressive responses to humans, 2, 3) foxes of the domesticated population with low (2) and high (3) domestication scores. D: Total time of locomotion, an indicator of exploratory behavior, and plasma cortisol levels in farm-bred and domesticated foxes at the age of 1–2 months: locomotion is plotted on the graph; plasma cortisol levels are represented as bars. E: Plasma cortisol in silver foxes during pregnancy and lactation. F–J: Dog-like morphological changes arisen in foxes of the domesticated population: F: Similarity of coat depigmentation between dogs and foxes: Left, border collie; Right, tame fox. G: Tail carriage, curly tail: Left, Islandsk Farehund; Right, tame fox. H: Ears are floppy and face skull is widened in some pups of tame foxes: Left, pug; Right, tame fox pup. I: Long jaw (elongation of the lower jaw), characteristic of the English bulldog, occurs among tame foxes: Left, English bulldog; Right, tame fox. J: Elongation of face skull in certain dog breeds and tame foxes: Left, Pharaoh hound, Right, tame fox.
Trut et al. 2009

4. Does fast response to selection go against Darwin?
Why would traits besides the one being selected on change?
How would you test this?
Vincent Musi for National Geographic.

5. Three pathways: commensal, prey, directed

6. timing and increase in animal domestications over the course of the Holocene up to 500 years BP. Domestications are separated by pathways but are grouped as taxa enter the postdomestication improvement phase. Animal icons indicate the approximate period by which animals were domesticated and entered the postdomestication improvement phase.

7. Larson et al. 2014

8. Larson et al. 2014

9. Larson et al. 2014

10. How many plant species have been fully domesticated by humans?25
100
250
500
1000

11. 250 plant species have been fully domesticated
2500 partially domesticated
160 plant families
Meyer & Purugganan 2013

12. Why these changes?
Meyer & Purugganan 2013

13. Selection is a hallmark of domestication and should leave molecular footprints in the genomes of crop species. The first domestication gene that was isolated — the maize tb1 locus — has a 60–90-kb selective sweep that occurred upstream of the 5′ end of the protein-coding region. This sweep, which is defined as an extended region of low nucleotide diversity, spans the Hopscotch transposable element insertion in the cis-regulatory region that regulates tb1 expression. Early genome-scale surveys in maize suggested that as many as 2–4% of genes in this cereal crop species were under positive selection, but recent work indicates that a much larger percentage (~7.6%) of the maize genome has been affected by domestication and diversification. Recent studies also reveal that selective sweeps are prevalent in the genomes of other crops, such as mungbean, rice and tomato.
Why these changes?
Meyer & Purugganan 2013

14. Can nonhuman organisms domesticate other species?
How?
Do the species change in the same way species change with human domestication?