Title

From Wild Animals to Domestic Pets, an Evolutionary View of Domestication

Authors

Carlos A. Driscoll, University of Oxford; National Cancer Institute at Frederick
David W. Macdonald, University of Oxford
Stephen J. O'Brien, National Cancer Institute at FrederickFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-16-2009

Publication Title

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Keywords

Artificial selection, Sympatric divergence

ISSN

1091-6490

Volume

106

Issue/No.

Supplement 1

First Page

9971

Last Page

9978

Abstract

Artificial selection is the selection of advantageous natural variation for human ends and is the mechanism by which most domestic species evolved. Most domesticates have their origin in one of a few historic centers of domestication as farm animals. Two notable exceptions are cats and dogs. Wolf domestication was initiated late in the Mesolithic when humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Those wolves less afraid of humans scavenged nomadic hunting camps and over time developed utility, initially as guards warning of approaching animals or other nomadic bands and soon thereafter as hunters, an attribute tuned by artificial selection. The first domestic cats had limited utility and initiated their domestication among the earliest agricultural Neolithic settlements in the Near East. Wildcat domestication occurred through a self-selective process in which behavioral reproductive isolation evolved as a correlated character of assortative mating coupled to habitat choice for urban environments. Eurasian wildcats initiated domestication and their evolution to companion animals was initially a process of natural, rather than artificial, selection over time driven during their sympatry with forbear wildcats.

Additional Comments

This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, ‘‘In the Light of Evolution III: Two Centuries of Darwin,’’ held January 16–17, 2009, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, CA. The complete program and audio files of most presentations are available on the NAS web site at www.nasonline.org/Sackler_Darwin .

NSUWorks Citation

Driscoll, Carlos A.; David W. Macdonald; and Stephen J. O'Brien. 2009. "From Wild Animals to Domestic Pets, an Evolutionary View of Domestication." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, (Supplement 1): 9971-9978. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_bio_facarticles/200

ORCID ID

0000-0001-7353-8301

ResearcherID

N-1726-2015