Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior

Evan L MacLeant, View ORCID ProfileNoah Snyder-Mackler, Bridgett M. vonHoldt, James A. Serpell
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/509315
Evan L MacLeant
1School of Anthropology, University of Arizona
2Department of Psychology, University of Arizona
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: evanmaclean@email.arizona.edu nsmack@uw.edu
Noah Snyder-Mackler
3Department of Psychology, University of Washington
4Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology, University of Washington
5Washington National Primate Research Center, University of Washington
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Noah Snyder-Mackler
  • For correspondence: evanmaclean@email.arizona.edu nsmack@uw.edu
Bridgett M. vonHoldt
6Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
James A. Serpell
7School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Variation across dog breeds presents a unique opportunity for investigating the evolution and biological basis of complex behavioral traits. We integrated behavioral data from more than 17,000 dogs from 101 breeds with breed-averaged genotypic data (N = 5,697 dogs) from over 100,000 loci in the dog genome. Across 14 traits, we found that breed differences in behavior are highly heritable, and that clustering of breeds based on behavior accurately recapitulates genetic relationships. We identify 131 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with breed differences in behavior, which are found in genes that are highly expressed in the brain and enriched for neurobiological functions and developmental processes. Our results provide insight into the heritability and genetic architecture of complex behavioral traits, and suggest that dogs provide a powerful model for these questions.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted January 01, 2019.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior
Evan L MacLeant, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Bridgett M. vonHoldt, James A. Serpell
bioRxiv 509315; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/509315
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior
Evan L MacLeant, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Bridgett M. vonHoldt, James A. Serpell
bioRxiv 509315; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/509315

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Animal Behavior and Cognition
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2434)
  • Biochemistry (4796)
  • Bioengineering (3335)
  • Bioinformatics (14704)
  • Biophysics (6649)
  • Cancer Biology (5180)
  • Cell Biology (7439)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4373)
  • Ecology (6890)
  • Epidemiology (2057)
  • Evolutionary Biology (9930)
  • Genetics (7351)
  • Genomics (9542)
  • Immunology (4570)
  • Microbiology (12700)
  • Molecular Biology (4954)
  • Neuroscience (28381)
  • Paleontology (199)
  • Pathology (809)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1394)
  • Physiology (2025)
  • Plant Biology (4516)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (978)
  • Synthetic Biology (1302)
  • Systems Biology (3919)
  • Zoology (729)