Sled Dogs Have an Unbroken Genetic Ancestry Dating Back Nearly 10,000 Years
chromas writes:
Sled Dogs Have an Unbroken Genetic Ancestry Dating Back Nearly 10,000 Years
Scientists have traced the ancestry of modern sled dogs, such as Siberian huskies and Alaskan malamutes, all the way back to the end of the last ice age, highlighting an extraordinarily long period of genetic continuity.
"Although sled dogs are one of the most specialized groups of dogs, their origin and evolution has received much less attention than many other dog groups," declares the opening sentence of a fascinating new research paper published today in Science.
Indeed, we know surprisingly little about the ancestry of modern sled dogs, a select group of domesticated canids that includes Siberian huskies, Alaskan malamutes, and the Greenland sled dog, the latter of which is an Inuit breed used for hunting and sledding. Mikkel-Holder Sinding, a paleogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen and the first author of the new study, along with scientists from many other institutions, embarked upon a genetic investigation to learn more about these working Arctic breeds, including where and when they first emerged.
[...] For the new study, the scientists sequenced the genomes from 10 modern Greenland sled dogs, the remains of a 9,500-year-old sled dog found on Zhokhov island (this specimen, dubbed "Zhokhov," was found buried alongside sled equipment), and a 33,000-year-old wolf mandible, dubbed "Yana." These genomes were then compared to the DNA of 114 modern dogs representing a host of geographically and genetically diverse breeds. This allowed the researchers to create a kind of family tree for the dogs.
Yana, unsurprisingly, was most certainly a wolf. Zhokhov, on the other hand, was found to be related to modern dogs, with DNA closely related to huskies, malamutes, and most especially Greenland sled dogs. The new research shows that ancient Siberian dogs are the common ancestor to all modern sled breeds. That Zhokhov is so closely related to Greenland sled dogs makes a lot of sense, considering how isolated they've been over the millennia.
Journal Reference:
Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Jazmin Ramos-Madrigal, et al. Arctic-adapted dogs emerged at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz8599 (doi.org says no))
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