Although wolves and dogs have virtually the same genetic makeup, there are some observable difference, mainly involving neotony. Does anyone know if the descendants of the PEOPLE who were around and participating have any genetic differences from people who were not involved? I note that there are many people who just can't stand dogs, and many other people who need to have or be around dogs.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The available evidence seems to suggest that genetic change is really only a one-way street amongst the various quasi-symbiotic relationships that humankind has entered into with other animal species. Humans would appear not to have changed, other than in cultural innovation - the Inuit's dogsled or the flowering of Native American culture on the Great Plains that followed the introduction of the horse. Even the semi-wild reindeer has been changed, in temperament if not anatomy, by the Lapps who literally harness its potential.
The only exception I can think of is the possibility that cats - or rather their intestinal parasites - may have affected human brain activity.
The first diagnosed cases of schizophrenia in western societies occurred during the late nineteenth century, at the time when cats were first kept as house pets rather than as a semi-wild agent of pest control. It might well be pure coincidence, but the cat carries a parasitic worm that, when ingested by a mouse, for example, can turn off the part of the brain that gives the mouse a strong antipathy to the scent of a cat. With this mechanism, the parasite goes a long way to ensure that the mouse, now less afraid of its predator, is more likely to be caught and eaten, a process which inevitably allows the parasite to find itself once again in the feline gut, the every environment for which it has evolved.
moNOtheist
Level 7
May 20, 2018
1
It's tempting to think that the transformation from wild wolf to domesticated dog, and with it the change in physiology, took generations - in fact, research shows that it took place with the span of less than half a dozen generations of wolf. It seems that it took a relatively brief time for the wolves that began to visit hunter-gatherer settlements, and feed on human leavings, to become both domesticated and less wolf-like, even in appearance.
moNOtheist
Level 7
May 20, 2018
1
Yup, exactly the same results when the Russian reproduced the domestication with foxes, about 12 generations. I'm looking for evidence of genetic changes in humans that allowed us to let wolves into our houses and guard our sheep and children.
My half baked opinion is that neoteny is a fraught concept. An enthusiastic oversimplified attempt at describing developing maturity. I assume that you are taking about people participating with dogs and those who have not. Dogs and humans have co evolved for their mutual benefit. Driven by epigenetic change.This relationship is common throughout all kingdoms in life. Individual people's affinity with dogs, as with other animals, is most likely dependent on familiarity. That is individual experience.
Dooley
Level 5
May 20, 2018
1
I mentioned neotony because of the differences between dogs and wolves in the first eight weeks or so; dogs eyes open far earlier than wolves. And I'm talking about whole stretches of geography where people treat dogs as pariahs or as food, and other geographic stretches where people depend on dogs. I'm looking to see if there's a gene or allele or some difference between them.
@andygee Sorry for the typo. Substitute or for of.
I speculate that there are some slight genetic difference that expresses itself culturally due to the mutual survival needs in different environmental factors in various regions. In areas where survival depends on hunting, herding and protection of livestock canines are revered. In these areas man has produced various different traits and other characteristics. Mucked around with canine genetics by breeding for purpose. In other places where dogs have had no survival purpose dogs are seen as pests. This must have had some considerable affect on the psyche of nations. And I'm sure this is replicated in the canine psyche.
The internationalisation (westernisation) of parts of Asia has broken this down and dogs are being kept as pets now.
As an aside. Over here the Australian Dingo is being though of as a different species or by some as a sub species of Canus familiaris. They both lived independently from man and cohabitated with the indigenous people for thousands of years. White invasion bought change. The invaders tried unsuccessfully to exterminate the dingo. The dingos did not fit in with introduced stock. Put a bounty on them and erected thousands of miles of dog fences. In some areas there are still legally shot by farmers. But attitudes change and they are now revered by large proportions of the population. They are now classified as a protected species and some people are keeping them as pets.
No, but there have been studies that show that when nuclear families are nurturing and take care of the children, the children physically mature at a much slower rate than the general population, with prolonged childhoods.
Researchers theorize that when children are protected, it's safe for them to mature more slowly, gaining the advantage of more parental instruction, giving their own children more advantages.
However, if the the scent of strange adult male urine is present, and children are subjected to stress, as when there is sexual abuse in the home, girls mature much more quickly, presumably to give them a chance to procreate while still alive.
birdingnut
Level 8
May 20, 2018
2
Interesting. Dogs mature faster than wolves, and wolf packs are more like human families than dog packs are.
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