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ToolsLobo, Diana, Morales, Hernán E., Van Oosterhout, Cock, López-Bao, José Vicente, Silva, Pedro, Llaneza, Luis, Pacheco, Carolina, Castro, Diana, Hernández-Alonso, Germán, Pacheco, George, Archer, John, Gilbert, M. Thomas P., Ferrand, Nuno and Godinho, Raquel (2025) Ancient dog introgression into the Iberian wolf genome may have facilitated adaptation to human-dominated landscapes. Genome Research, 35 (3). pp. 432-445. ISSN 1088-9051
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Abstract
Understanding how large carnivores respond to increasingly human-dominated landscapes will determine their future adaptive potential. The Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus), a gray wolf subspecies endemic to the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain), has uniquely persisted in human-dominated landscapes, unlike many other wolf populations that faced widespread extinction across Europe during the twentieth century. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive genome-wide analysis of 145 historical and contemporary Iberian wolf samples to investigate whether hybridization with domestic dogs resulted in genetic introgression. We identified a dog-derived block on Chromosome 2 in Iberian wolves, displaying signatures consistent with introgression and high nucleotide similarity among introgressed individuals. Additionally, our estimates place the average timing of introgression between 6100 and 3000 years ago, with low sequence divergence to dogs from the Iberian Peninsula suggesting a single local origin for the hybridization event. Using forward genetic simulations, we show that the introgressed haplotype is most likely being maintained in Iberian wolves by selection. The introgressed dog variants are located within the MAST4 gene, which has been linked to neurological disorders, including cognitive and motor developmental delays, hinting at a potential role in cognitive behavior in Iberian wolves. This study uncovers a case of putative adaptive introgression from domestic dogs into wolves, offering new insights into wild canids’ adaptation to human-dominated landscapes.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | Data access statement: The SNP genotypes of all contemporary samples generated in this study have been submitted to the Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/) under DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/NSZ9K. All raw whole-genome sequencing data generated in this study have been submitted to the NCBI BioProject database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/) under accession number PRJNA1078274. Funding information: This work was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Grant Agreement Number 857251. The authors also acknowledge the research support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the projects PTDC/BIA-EVF/2460/2014, DivProtect/0012/2021, and UIDP/50027/2020. D.L., R.G., P.S., and C.P. were supported by FCT (PhD grant PD/BD/132403/2017 and research contract in project DivProtect/0012/2021 to D.L.; research contract 2022.07926.CEECIND to R.G.; research contract in project PTDC/BIA-EVL/31902/2017 to P.S.; and PhD grant PD/BD/135026/2017 to C.P.). C.V.O. was funded by the Earth and Life Systems Aliance (ELSA), Norwich Research Park. J.V.L.B. was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (RYC-2015-18932; CGL2017-87528-R AEI/FEDER EU), and by a GRUPIN research grant from the Regional Government of Asturias (AYUD/2021/51314). J.A. was supported by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors-COMPETE (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029115) through FCT project PTDC/BIA-EVL/29115/2017. M.T.P.G. acknowledges ERC Consolidator Award 681396 “Extinction Genomics,” Danish National Research Foundation award DNRF143, and Norwegian Environment Agency project 18088069 for funding. G.H.A. is supported by the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico (CONACYT) grant CVU 576734. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | genetics,genetics(clinical) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1300/1311 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Jun 2025 15:30 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2025 11:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99411 |
| DOI: | 10.1101/gr.279093.124 |
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