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Data from: The evolutionary history of dogs in the Americas

Leathlobhair, Máire Ní1; Perri, Angela R.2; Irving-Pease, Evan K.3; Witt, Kelsey E.4; Linderholm, Anna3; Haile, James3; Lebrasseur, Ophelie3; Ameen, Carly5; Blick, Jeffrey6; Boyko, Adam R.7; Brace, Selina8; Nunes Cortes, Yahaira9; Crockford, Susan J.10; Devault, Alison11; Dimopoulos, Evangelos A.3; Eldridge, Morley12; Enk, Jacob11; Gopalakrishnan, Shyam13; Gori, Kevin1; Grimes, Vaughan14; Guiry, Eric15; Hansen, Anders J.13; Hulme-Beaman, Ardern3; Johnson, John16; Kitchen, Andrew17; Kasparov, Aleksei K.18; Kwon, Young-Mi1; Nikolskiy, Pavel A.18; Peraza Lope, Carlos19; Manin, Aurélie20; Martin, Terrance21; Meyer, Michael22; Noack Myers, Kelsey23; Omura, Mark24; Rouillard, Jean-Marie11; Pavlova, Elena Y.18; Sciulli, Paul25; Mikkel-Holger, Sinding S.13; Strakova, Andrea1; Ivanova, Varvara V.26; Widga, Christopher27; Willerslev, Eske13; Pitulko, Vladimir V.18; Barnes, Ian8; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.13; Dobney, Keith M.5; Malhi, Ripan S.4; Murchison, Elizabeth P.1; Larson, Greger3; Frantz, Laurent A. F.3

Published May 07, 2019 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.s1k47j4

Data files

May 07, 2019 version files 121.35 MB

Abstract

Dogs were present in the Americas prior to the arrival of European colonists, but the origin and fate of these pre-contact dogs are largely unknown. We sequenced 71 mitochondrial and seven nuclear genomes from ancient North American and Siberian dogs spanning ~9,000 years. Our analysis indicates that American dogs were not domesticated from North American wolves. Instead, American dogs form a monophyletic lineage that likely originated in Siberia and dispersed into the Americas alongside people. After the arrival of Europeans, native American dogs almost completely disappeared, leaving a minimal genetic legacy in modern dog populations. Remarkably, the closest detectable extant lineage to pre-contact American dogs is the canine transmissible venereal tumor, a contagious cancer clone derived from an individual dog that lived up to 8,000 years ago.