Animal domestication in the era of ancient genomics

Laurent a F Frantz (1) , Daniel G Bradley (2) , Greger Larson (3) , Ludovic Orlando (4)

1 School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
2 Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
3 The Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
4 AMIS - Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse

The domestication of animals led to a major shift in human subsistence patterns, [Au: human subsistence patterns OK?] from a hunter-gatherer to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, which ultimately resulted in the development of complex societies. Over the past 15,000 years, the phenotype and genotype of multiple animal species, such as dogs, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and horses, have been substantially altered during their adaptation to the human niche. Recent methodological innovations, such as improved ancient DNA extraction methods and next-generation sequencing, have made possible the sequencing of whole ancient genomes and helped researchers to reconstruct the process by which animals entered into domestic relationships with humans and were subjected to novel selection pressures. Here, we discuss and update key concepts in animal domestication in the light of recent contributions from ancient genomics.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Laurent a F Frantz, Daniel G Bradley, Greger Larson, Ludovic Orlando. Animal domestication in the era of ancient genomics. Nature Reviews Genetics, 2020, 21 (8), pp.449-460. ⟨10.1038/s41576-020-0225-0⟩. ⟨hal-03030302⟩