Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs
Creators: name: Bergström, Anders
name: Stanton, David WG
name: Taron, Ulrike H
name: Frantz, Laurent
name: Sinding, Mikkel-Holger S
name: Ersmark, Erik
name: Pfrengle, Saskia
name: Cassatt-Johnstone, Molly
name: Lebrasseur, Ophélie
name: Girdland-Flink, Linus
name: Fernandes, Daniel M
name: Ollivier, Morgane
name: Speidel, Leo
name: Gopalakrishnan, Shyam
name: Westbury, Michael V
name: Ramos-Madrigal, Jazmin
name: Feuerborn, Tatiana R
name: Reiter, Ella
name: Gretzinger, Joscha
name: Münzel, Susanne C
name: Swali, Pooja
name: Conard, Nicholas J
name: Carøe, Christian
name: Haile, James
name: Linderholm, Anna
name: Androsov, Semyon
name: Barnes, Ian
name: Baumann, Chris
name: Benecke, Norbert
name: Bocherens, Hervé
name: Brace, Selina
name: Carden, Ruth F
name: Drucker, Dorothée G
name: Fedorov, Sergey
name: Gasparik, Mihály
name: Germonpré, Mietje
name: Grigoriev, Semyon
name: Groves, Pam
name: Hertwig, Stefan T
name: Ivanova, Varvara V
name: Janssens, Luc
name: Jennings, Richard P
name: Kasparov, Aleksei K
name: Kirillova, Irina V
name: Kurmaniyazov, Islam
name: Kuzmin, Yaroslav V
name: Kosintsev, Pavel A
name: Lázničková-Galetová, Martina
name: Leduc, Charlotte
name: Nikolskiy, Pavel
name: Nussbaumer, Marc
name: O’Drisceoil, Cóilín
name: Orlando, Ludovic
name: Outram, Alan
name: Pavlova, Elena Y
name: Perri, Angela R
name: Pilot, Małgorzata
name: Pitulko, Vladimir V
name: Plotnikov, Valerii V
name: Protopopov, Albert V
name: Rehazek, André
name: Sablin, Mikhail
name: Seguin-Orlando, Andaine
name: Storå, Jan
name: Verjux, Christian
name: Zaibert, Victor F
name: Zazula, Grant
name: Crombé, Philippe
name: Hansen, Anders J
name: Willerslev, Eske
name: Leonard, Jennifer A
name: Götherström, Anders
name: Pinhasi, Ron
name: Schuenemann, Verena J
name: Hofreiter, Michael
name: Gilbert, M Thomas P
name: Shapiro, Beth
name: Larson, Greger
name: Krause, Johannes
name: Dalén, Love
name: Skoglund, Pontus
Publisher: name: The Francis Crick Institute
Year: 2022
Subjects: Genetics &amp; Genomics
Infectious Disease
Ecology,Evolution &amp; Ethology

description: The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population, and they remained widespread throughout the last Ice Age when many other large mammal species went extinct. Little is known, however, about the history and possible extinction of past wolf populations or when and where the wolf progenitors of the present-day dog lineage (Canis familiaris) lived. Here we analysed 72 ancient wolf genomes spanning the last 100,000 years from Europe, Siberia and North America. We found that wolf populations were highly connected throughout the Late Pleistocene, with levels of differentiation an order of magnitude lower than they are today. This population connectivity allowed us to detect natural selection across the time series, including rapid fixation of mutations in the gene IFT88 40,000–30,000 years ago. We show that dogs are overall more closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia than to those from western Eurasia, suggesting a domestication process in the east. However, we also found that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive up to half of their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves, reflecting either an independent domestication process or admixture from local wolves. None of the analysed ancient wolf genomes is a direct match for either of these dog ancestries, meaning that the exact progenitor populations remain to be located.