Type of Submission
Poster
Keywords
domestication syndrome, Charles Darwin, evolutionary biology, neural crest cells, D. Wright, A. Wilkins, fox domestication, neurocristopothies
Proposal
The origin of what is now known as the domestication syndrome can be traced back to the seminal works of Charles Darwin: Origin of Species and Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication, published in 1859 and 1868 respectively. In these works Darwin first examined the set of disparate traits shared by domesticated animals and proposed a mechanism for their unexpected emergence. While the mechanism Darwin proposed has been disproven, current scientific research proposes two genetic mechanisms for these traits’ emergence and inheritance. Wilkins, an evolutionary biologist, has extensively researched domestication and has proposed the Neural Crest Cell/Domestication Syndrome (NC/DS) Hypothesis wherein proposed genetic changes in the genetic regulatory networks (GRN) controlling neural crest cell (NCC) development give rise to the different traits found in the generalized domestication syndrome. Wright, a neurogeneticist, disagrees with this assertion, citing that there is inconclusive evidence to propose that this mechanism is responsible for the many traits of DS. However, Wright struggles to propose a testable hypothesis to counter that proposed by Wilkins. Moreover, throughout a series of commenting publications Wilkins was able to clarify definitions, and put forth examples of quantitative and qualitative studies to support his initial inferences. Therefore, in light of supporting research for the NC/DS hypothesis, I propose areas of future research given the abstraction wherein biological systems are viewed as computational systems with sets of inputs, outputs, hardware, and software.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Publication Date
2023
Domestication Syndrome in Animals: Evaluating the Trajectory of Domestication Syndrome Research
The origin of what is now known as the domestication syndrome can be traced back to the seminal works of Charles Darwin: Origin of Species and Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication, published in 1859 and 1868 respectively. In these works Darwin first examined the set of disparate traits shared by domesticated animals and proposed a mechanism for their unexpected emergence. While the mechanism Darwin proposed has been disproven, current scientific research proposes two genetic mechanisms for these traits’ emergence and inheritance. Wilkins, an evolutionary biologist, has extensively researched domestication and has proposed the Neural Crest Cell/Domestication Syndrome (NC/DS) Hypothesis wherein proposed genetic changes in the genetic regulatory networks (GRN) controlling neural crest cell (NCC) development give rise to the different traits found in the generalized domestication syndrome. Wright, a neurogeneticist, disagrees with this assertion, citing that there is inconclusive evidence to propose that this mechanism is responsible for the many traits of DS. However, Wright struggles to propose a testable hypothesis to counter that proposed by Wilkins. Moreover, throughout a series of commenting publications Wilkins was able to clarify definitions, and put forth examples of quantitative and qualitative studies to support his initial inferences. Therefore, in light of supporting research for the NC/DS hypothesis, I propose areas of future research given the abstraction wherein biological systems are viewed as computational systems with sets of inputs, outputs, hardware, and software.
