Elzinga David C, Kulwicki Ryan, Iselin Samuel, Spence Lee, Capaldi Alex
Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, USA.
Department of Mathematics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2025 Feb;292(2040):20242646. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.2646. Epub 2025 Feb 12.
Wolves are among the earliest animals to be domesticated. However, the mechanism by which ancient wolves were domesticated into modern dogs is unknown. Most of the prevailing domestication hypotheses posit that humans selectively bred wolves that were more docile. However, a competing hypothesis states that wolves that were less hostile towards humans would essentially domesticate themselves by naturally selecting for tamer wolves since that would allow for easier access to food from human settlements. A major critique of the latter hypothesis is whether evolution by this natural selective pathway could have occurred in a sufficiently short time span. Simulating the process would help demonstrate if such an objection is sufficient to dismiss this hypothesis. Thus, we constructed an agent-based model of the evolution of a single trait, a measure of human tolerance, in canines to test the merit of the time constraint objection. We tested scenarios both with and without mate preference to provide a potential sexual selective force. We used fecundity and mortality rates from the literature for validation. Hartigan's dip test of unimodality was used to measure if and when divergence of populations occurred. Our results indicate that the proto-domestication hypothesis cannot be rejected on the basis of time constraints.
狼是最早被驯化的动物之一。然而，古代狼被驯化为现代狗的机制尚不清楚。大多数流行的驯化假说认为，人类选择性地培育了更温顺的狼。然而，另一种竞争性假说认为，对人类敌意较小的狼会通过自然选择更温顺的狼来实现自我驯化，因为这样可以更容易地从人类定居点获取食物。对后一种假说的一个主要批评是，这种自然选择途径的进化是否能在足够短的时间内发生。模拟这一过程将有助于证明这种反对意见是否足以推翻这一假说。因此，我们构建了一个基于主体的模型，用于测试犬类中单一性状（对人类的容忍度）的进化，以检验时间限制反对意见的合理性。我们测试了有无配偶偏好的情景，以提供一种潜在的性选择力量。我们使用文献中的繁殖力和死亡率进行验证。使用哈蒂根单峰性检验来衡量种群是否以及何时发生分化。我们的结果表明，不能基于时间限制来否定原始驯化假说。
