Re: evolution of wolves into dogs.

Ron O wrote:
On May 16, 12:51 pm, "//// Owen \\\\\\\\" <m...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I am not a troll. My question arises from ignorance and confusion. I was
reading about a theory of how wolves evolved into dogs. It involved
thyroxine, the hormone secreted by the thyroid gland.

My confusion is this: Is the domestication of the wolf evolution at all? In
my ignorance , it all seems so simple. Some wolves were amenable to
domestication, and we domesticated them. Other wolves we not amenable to
domestication, and we didn't domesticate them.

Evolution is a word that is used for a lot if things. "The evolution
of the petroleum industry." That phrase has little to do with
biological evolution.

Domestic dogs are a sub species of wolf. There is no doubt that they
have a lot of genetic differences. The allele frequency shifts in the
population is evolution by definition, but it isn't what most
biologists would call speciation or what is termed macro evolution.
It isn't speciation *yet*. I bet it will be eventually.

... You probably have to consider domestic dogs as
a sort of ring species. There is still a continuum where they can all
interbreed with each other, but the extremes would have a problem.

There is still gene flow between wolves and domestic dogs. As far as
I know they are fully fertile hybrids and you can obtain animals with
varying degrees of introgression.

It probably will lead to complete speciation eventually, though. There
may be gene flow from wolves into dogs, and vice versa to some extent,
but it is very limited. Each of the purebred lines is bred nearly
exclusively within the line, so there is no gene-flow into the purebred
lines. As you note, some purebred lines already can't reproduce with
each other (generally size problems ... I don't want to see the
chihuahua that tries to gestate Great Dane sired pups). Eventually, some
purebred line will not be able to cross with any other line.
KWW

.

Relevant Pages

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