BEIJING, CHINA—Geneticist Guo-dong Wang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his team analyzed the DNA of four gray wolves, three indigenous Chinese dogs, a German shepherd, a Belgian Malinois, and a Tibetan mastiff. Their results indicate that gray wolves split from Chinese dogs some 32,000 years ago. They then compared corresponding genes in dogs and humans, and found that domestic dogs and their human partners experienced similar changes in digestion, metabolism, and brain chemistry as they evolved together. “As domestication is often associated with large increases in population density and crowded living conditions, these ‘unfavorable’ environments might be the selective pressure that drove the rewiring of both species,” the team wrote.
