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pstinard · 06-24-2013, 06:43 AM

Hi,

I came across a research article from March of this year that studies how genes changed during the course of dog domestication to allow them to digest starch better. This article doesn't mean that you should change your Yorkie's diet to include more starches--you should feed your Yorkie what works best for him or her. It just describes how dogs in general were bred to be able to handle more starches in their diet than their wild wolf ancestors.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture11837.html

Since this article is probably behind a pay firewall, I will quote the two concluding paragraphs, including a couple of my own comments in brackets:

In conclusion, we have presented evidence that dog domestication was accompanied by selection at three genes with key roles in starch digestion: AMY2B [this gene breaks starch down to maltose and small oligosaccharides in the dog's intestine], MGAM [this gene helps break down maltose and small oligosaccharides into glucose] and SGLT1 [this gene helps the body's cells absorb glucose]. Our results show that adaptations that allowed the early ancestors of modern dogs to thrive on a diet rich in starch, relative to the carnivorous diet of wolves, constituted a crucial step in early dog domestication. This may suggest that a change of ecological niche could have been the driving force behind the domestication process, and that scavenging in waste dumps near the increasingly common human settlements during the dawn of the agricultural revolution may have constituted this new niche6. In light of previous results describing the timing and location of dog domestication, our findings may suggest that the development of agriculture catalysed the domestication of dogs.

The results presented here demonstrate a striking case of parallel evolution whereby the benefits of coping with an increasingly starch-rich diet during the agricultural revolution caused similar adaptive responses in dog and human. This emphasizes how insights from dog domestication may benefit our understanding of human recent evolution and disease. Finally, by understanding the genetic basis of adaptive traits in dogs we have come closer to unlocking the potential in dog and wolf comparisons to decipher the genetics of behaviour.

06-24-2013, 06:43 AM	#1
pstinard YT 3000 Club Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Urbana, IL USA Posts: 3,648	Article on the adaptation of domestic dogs to starch-rich diets. Hi, I came across a research article from March of this year that studies how genes changed during the course of dog domestication to allow them to digest starch better. This article doesn't mean that you should change your Yorkie's diet to include more starches--you should feed your Yorkie what works best for him or her. It just describes how dogs in general were bred to be able to handle more starches in their diet than their wild wolf ancestors. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture11837.html Since this article is probably behind a pay firewall, I will quote the two concluding paragraphs, including a couple of my own comments in brackets: In conclusion, we have presented evidence that dog domestication was accompanied by selection at three genes with key roles in starch digestion: AMY2B [this gene breaks starch down to maltose and small oligosaccharides in the dog's intestine], MGAM [this gene helps break down maltose and small oligosaccharides into glucose] and SGLT1 [this gene helps the body's cells absorb glucose]. Our results show that adaptations that allowed the early ancestors of modern dogs to thrive on a diet rich in starch, relative to the carnivorous diet of wolves, constituted a crucial step in early dog domestication. This may suggest that a change of ecological niche could have been the driving force behind the domestication process, and that scavenging in waste dumps near the increasingly common human settlements during the dawn of the agricultural revolution may have constituted this new niche6. In light of previous results describing the timing and location of dog domestication, our findings may suggest that the development of agriculture catalysed the domestication of dogs. The results presented here demonstrate a striking case of parallel evolution whereby the benefits of coping with an increasingly starch-rich diet during the agricultural revolution caused similar adaptive responses in dog and human. This emphasizes how insights from dog domestication may benefit our understanding of human recent evolution and disease. Finally, by understanding the genetic basis of adaptive traits in dogs we have come closer to unlocking the potential in dog and wolf comparisons to decipher the genetics of behaviour.