page_title: Domestication
section_title: Theory
hierarchical_section_title: Domestication / Animals / Theory
caption_attribution_description: English: Iran
context_page_description: Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which one group of organisms assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another group to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that second group.
  Charles Darwin recognized the small number of traits that made domestic species different from their wild ancestors. He was also the first to recognize the difference between conscious selective breeding in which humans directly select for desirable traits, and unconscious selection where traits evolve as a by-product of natural selection or from selection on other traits. There is a genetic difference between domestic and wild populations. There is also such a difference between the domestication traits that researchers believe to have been essential at the early stages of domestication, and the improvement traits that have appeared since the split between wild and domestic populations.
context_section_description: The domestication of animals is the mutual relationship between animals with the humans who have influence on their care and reproduction. Charles Darwin recognized the small number of traits that made domestic species different from their wild ancestors. He was also the first to recognize the difference between conscious selective breeding in which humans directly select for desirable traits, and unconscious selection where traits evolve as a by-product of natural selection or from selection on other traits.
  There is a genetic difference between domestic and wild populations. There is also such a difference between the domestication traits that researchers believe to have been essential at the early stages of domestication, and the improvement traits that have appeared since the split between wild and domestic populations. Domestication traits are generally fixed within all domesticates, and were selected during the initial episode of domestication of that animal or plant, whereas improvement traits are present only in a proportion of domesticates, though they may be fixed in individual breeds or regional populations.
  Domestication of animals should not be confused with taming. Taming is the conditioned behavioral modification of an individual animal, to reduce its natural avoidance of humans, and to tolerate the presence of humans. Domestication is the permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to an inherited predisposition to respond calmly to human presence.
  Certain animal species, and certain individuals within those species, make better candidates for domestication than others because they exhibit certain behavioral characteristics:
  The size and organization of their social structure
  The availability and the degree of selectivity in their choice of mates
  The ease and speed with which the parents bond with their young, and the maturity and mobility of the young at birth
  The degree of flexibility in diet and habitat tolerance; and
  Responses to humans and new environments, including reduced flight response and reactivity to external stimuli.
caption: Karakul sheep[a] and shepherds in Iran. Photograph by Harold F. Weston, 1920s
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