However, the nucleotides that make dogs look different were only found in a few areas of the DNA. These reflect the areas that have changed in the centuries since people started breeding dogs for different traits, creating many different breeds of dog in the process. 19 авг. 2011 г.
Why do dogs have such a diverse range of characteristics?
The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) diverged from the gray wolf on the canine family tree more than 15,000 years ago. Today, due to selective breeding by humans throughout history, dogs exhibit an extremely wide range of body types and canine behaviors.
Are dogs the most genetically diverse species?
Dogs do hold the record as the world's most diverse land mammal, said Elaine Ostrander, a geneticist who studies dogs at the National Institutes of Health. The largest dogs are 40 times the size of the smallest ones. They come with different coats, head shapes, snouts, and behaviors.
What is so interesting about dogs genetically?
The dog genome contains approximately 3 billion base pairs of DNA and thousands of genes, but only 8 genes in the dog are associated with coat color. The loci associated with coat color in dogs are: A (agouti) locus. This site is responsible for different coat patterns in the dog.
Why are dogs more diverse than cats?
When it comes to selective breeding of dogs and cats, however, most of the selective breeding that has produced modern cat breeds has occurred over the past 75 years. Dogs, on the other hand, have been selectively bred for hundreds of years.
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