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perta1234 t1_j02sd97 wrote

Reply to comment by gravitydriven in Do we know the amount of "dog genetics" that spread into the wolf population? by CrDe

I hate to be the guy... "genetic drift" should be replaced with "gene flow" above. Apologies, but it is really annoying to read and cannot help myself. 😬 Genetic drift is a different thing, sort of the opposite, or, to be more precise, gene flow often reduces genetic drift within populations.

The timing of dog domestication is bit unsure, you prefer a very distant estimate. I would prefer to start 30k as the oldest estimate, and even that might be stretching a bit. I believe Wayne et all have preferred that number. I could be wrong, but I would remember the 100k was shown to be overinterpretation of the data they had.

Not sure if you have ever consumed Larsson's comics. In one wolves talk about domesticated humans. Not completely wrong. It's a matter of perspective. The first domestications were quite complex and slow processes. All those were sort of "pact" or "flock" or "hive" species, so with a strong social structure and were preadapted to domestication. That predomestication is one reason why timing domestications is so complicated, especially for dog.

People mix taming and domestication all the time. They are different things. You can domesticate without taming (some fish as an easy example). For sure you can tame without domesticating (brown bear). Dog is a domesticated type of wolf. Last time I looked into it, they said the wild ancestor is none of the present day wolf types. Gone extinct.

Hybridization is not good or bad,. But it is very risky. Bit like taming wild animals. Anything can happen. It can destroy the genetic basis of the population, but sometimes might help too. Challenging to optimize.

The question by OP is challenging. I did not find global estimates of gene flow just now, though I remember seeing some in different units than proportion (as effective gene flow estimated from modern day data). That sample set was bit lacking, though. Causes biases. Anyway, here is a nice read around the hybridization question, and how the experts see it. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00175/full

Sorry for the rant. Cheers.

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gravitydriven t1_j02zmo3 wrote

Yep, 100% I got it wrong, gene flow is the correct term.

I used the 100k year wolf bc that's what OP said, I agree that wolves were domesticated, eventually resulting in canis familiaris more than 10k years ago. It's tough to pin down a date bc it happened at different rates across different continents. 30k is a date I'm mostly happy with, but I'd like more data (am scientist, always want more data).

I'd like to see more widespread and genetically diverse wolf populations before we start doing hybridization research. I don't think we should be breeding wolf dogs for like 85 reasons. Lets do a great job caring for the ones we have and start legislating against backyard breeders bc 98% of humans are not going to do a competent job raising them.

Side note: I think an expanding population of coyote-wolf hybrids would be very interesting. Lots of good adaptations from both, and a good possibility for inter species cooperation. But there might be a big possibility that they would be very comfortable in urban and suburban environments, which ends with a lot of dead pets and children

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perta1234 t1_j06abz1 wrote

I agree. Last time I read more about dog domestication, I think domestication more than 16 000 years ago was not having strong evidence, so people had different opinions or interpretations. 16000 years is a long time too. Anyway, maybe that is a minimum estimate. Cannot say if anything new has been found recently. The genomic and archaeological methods develop quickly, but it is still bit challenging to apply those methods to a large number of samples. I have a feeling this type of research is bit less popular or funded at the moment. Could be a personal bias as well.

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