Do we know the amount of "dog genetics" that spread into the wolf population?

Submitted by CrDe t3_zkqsc7 in askscience

Some breeders cross a dog and a wolf to create a wolf-dog. That make me thinking, over the thousands of years we bred dogs, there must have been countless occurrences of cross breeding between the two. I wonder if we know the amount of genes and DNA sequences that evolved among dogs that spread into the wolf population ? I saw some people adopting a wolf as a pet, I am under the impression that a wolf from 100 000 year ago would not have been tamed so easily.

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h3rbi74 t1_j01e4v4 wrote

There is a TON of lateral gene flow (ie crossbreeding) between some populations of canines. Not just domestic dogs and “gray wolves” in general, but also coyotes and some particular geographic subspecies of wolf. “What constitutes a species” isn’t nearly as cut and dried as we were led to believe back in the day, when part of the definition included not reproducing with another species! One example of a trait that most researchers agree originated in dogs is melanistic/black wolves found in Yellowstone and some other places. I can’t remember which specific paper we talked about when I first learned about this in a seminar by Ray Coppinger many years ago, but here are a couple that come up on a quick search to get you started:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218311254

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04824-9

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horsetuna t1_j058spn wrote

Randomly on the topic of what defines a species, they found that two species of cichlid fish will interbreed and produce viable offspring if you use a filtered color of light that makes them look identical. .

But in natural conditions, they will refuse to even approach each other because they look too different.

A similar study was done on two species of grasshoppers. The females breed with the males that sound right. And each species female has a different note that means 'this male is my species'.

But the notes the males sing at depends on their temperature! The put heaters on the heads of grasshopper A and made them sing at the note for Grasshopper B species... And the females accepted the warmed up males. I don't remember if the offspring were viable though

(Also they found where the two grasshopper species overlap, there was a bigger difference between their songs. But further apart the songs actually sounded more similar, where the risk of cross breeding was smaller)

Species are weird, fluid, and artificial. And also what is 'natural conditions '? In the wild, the cichlids and grasshoppers would probably never cross breed unless a mutation broke down the barrier.

It makes you think what is a 'natural' environment for a human. We have interned with Neanderthals, so we cannot be a distinct species from them... Or did we put ourselves and them into artificial, unnatural conditions when we broke down language and cultural barriers? Yes there could have been force involved... But iirc no other species forces itself on other species (except perhaps dogs and amorous pet cats, which can be because of a lack of natural releases or abnormal breeding causing these issues)

It can become a controversial and even DANGEROUS thing especially when you apply such discussions to humans, who are ever the exception to the rule of nature.

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gravitydriven t1_j01sevx wrote

There is some amount of genetic drift between wolves and domestic dogs, but it's not a lot. They don't have many opportunities to reproduce, survive to adolescence, and breed again. Their habitats don't have a lot of overlap. You see more genetic drift with wolves and coyotes, since there are many places in the wild where their habitats overlap. Unfortunately, wolves prey on coyotes kind of a lot. And it's usually a "gang territory" thing and not a "oh look food" kind of thing.

Almost any mammal if raised from infancy can be "tamed", including wolves from 100k years ago. Dolphins, orcas, and elephants enjoy cooperating with humans, and have done so for a very long time, but keeping one as a "pet" would probably not go well. Raising and living with wolves is a very difficult task. A person who adopts a full wolf, without having raised wolf hybrids or other large wild canids, is an absolute moron. It's like a velociraptor. Very intelligent, needs tons of physical and intellectual stimulation, will absolutely it's escape it's enclosure, loves cooperating with pack mates, and will be relatively unpredictable when introduced to new animal friends. They need a ton of space and a very specific diet. The huge plus side to owning a wolf hybrid is that it's usually just a very large Husky-shepherd mix, with maybe 10% wolf genes.

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perta1234 t1_j02sd97 wrote

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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annomandaris t1_j02upck wrote

Yea even like an F3 is borderline, i would look for an F4 if you've never had wolfdogs before. then work upwards.

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