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Domestication syndrome

#1
elte Offline
Quote:Dogs, cows, sheep, horses, pigs, and birds -- over the past 15,000 years, our ancestors domesticated dozens of wild animals to keep them as farm animals or pets. To make wild wolves evolve into tame dogs, the least aggressive animals, or most gentle ones, were selected for breeding. Tameness was therefore the key criterion for selection. Over time, it wasn't only the animals' behavior that changed, but their appearance as well -- with the same changes emerging across various species. For example, domestic rabbits, dogs, and pigs all have white patches, floppy ears, smaller brains, and shorter snouts. In science, this suite of traits is referred to as the domestication syndrome.

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Regular exposure to humans results in white patches in the fur

A team of researchers led by Anna Lindholm from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at UZH has now also observed this phenomenon in wild mice (Mus musculus domesticus) that live in a barn near Zurich. Within a decade, this population of mice developed two of the distinct phenotypic changes: white patches in their otherwise brown-colored fur as well as shorter snouts. "The mice gradually lost their fear and developed signs of domestication. This happened without any human selection, solely as a result of being exposed to us regularly," says Anna Lindholm. The evolutionary biologist has been studying the mice that live in the empty barn for about 15 years. These animals are regularly provided with food and water, and investigated by the researchers.  

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...113053.htm
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#2
C C Offline
Circa 2013 NOVA had a program about dogs that brought up how tamer animals led to lower levels of adrenaline which in turn changed their physiology. The discovery was ironically made in Soviet Russia, which had tried to repress genetics as a fascist pseudoscience. (Who says those old school Marxists were only fixated on threats to class & labor social justice? They were rounding up and executing or sending to labor camps biologists who practiced and supported genetics. "It's all eugenics! Punish the fiends!")

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue...stication/

The scientists initially theorized that adrenaline might share a biochemical pathway with melanin, which controls pigment production in fur. Further research has since supported this initial hypothesis.


Dogs Decoded
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/dogs-decoded.html

NARRATOR: One fascinating result to come out of this experiment is the fact that tamer foxes are producing less adrenaline. With lower adrenaline levels, the foxes experience less fear and are less aggressive.

ANNA KUKEKOVA: He is like a doggy, you know, like the puppy who's very happy when somebody picks him up from the floor. It's unbelievable how they trust, how they trust people. And I just really admire this animal.

LYUDMILA TRUT [Dubbed]: So, within 50 years of our intensive selection process, this fire-breathing dragon has turned into a human friend.

If foxes were brought up in a domestic environment, interacting with other animals and humans, they would make fantastic pets. They are as independent as cats, but, at the same time, as devoted as any dog could be.

NARRATOR: One surprising result of this experiment is that, as the foxes' behavior changes, so does their physical appearance.

Just a few generations into the experiment, scientists noticed a curious phenomenon. The normal pattern and silver color of the coat changed dramatically in some of the tame foxes. Their tails often became curly instead of straight. Some young foxes kept their floppy ears for much longer than usual, and their limbs and tails generally became shorter than their wild counterparts'.

In effect, the tame silver foxes were beginning to look more like dogs.

~
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#3
elte Offline
I recall something about humans even domesticating themselves some, affecting things like facial features, for example, roundness and smoothness, although blotchy colored skin hasn't much been visible yet.
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