RT Journal
A1 Fan, Zhenxin
A1 Silva, Pedro
A1 Gronau, Ilan
A1 Wang, Shuoguo
A1 Armero, Aitor Serres
A1 Schweizer, Rena M.
A1 Ramirez, Oscar
A1 Pollinger, John
A1 Galaverni, Marco
A1 Ortega Del-Vecchyo, Diego
A1 Du, Lianming
A1 Zhang, Wenping
A1 Zhang, Zhihe
A1 Xing, Jinchuan
A1 Vilà, Carles
A1 Marques-Bonet, Tomas
A1 Godinho, Raquel
A1 Yue, Bisong
A1 Wayne, Robert K.
T1 Worldwide patterns of genomic variation and admixture in gray wolves
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2016 
FD February 01 
VO 26 
IS 2 
SP 163 
OP 173 
DO 10.1101/gr.197517.115 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/26/2/163.abstract 
AB The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is a widely distributed top predator and ancestor of the domestic dog. To address questions about wolf relationships to each other and dogs, we assembled and analyzed a data set of 34 canine genomes. The divergence between New and Old World wolves is the earliest branching event and is followed by the divergence of Old World wolves and dogs, confirming that the dog was domesticated in the Old World. However, no single wolf population is more closely related to dogs, supporting the hypothesis that dogs were derived from an extinct wolf population. All extant wolves have a surprisingly recent common ancestry and experienced a dramatic population decline beginning at least ∼30 thousand years ago (kya). We suggest this crisis was related to the colonization of Eurasia by modern human hunter–gatherers, who competed with wolves for limited prey but also domesticated them, leading to a compensatory population expansion of dogs. We found extensive admixture between dogs and wolves, with up to 25% of Eurasian wolf genomes showing signs of dog ancestry. Dogs have influenced the recent history of wolves through admixture and vice versa, potentially enhancing adaptation. Simple scenarios of dog domestication are confounded by admixture, and studies that do not take admixture into account with specific demographic models are problematic.