Domestication of mammals

Domestication = Breeding animals in captivity for the purposes of economic profit. Humans maintain control over the reproduction, food supply and social/spatial organization of domesticated species.

  1. Why domesticate?

    1. Benefits of keeping animals

      1. Meat (many ungulates)
      2. Milk (cow, goat)
      3. Clothing (hides, wool)
      4. Dung for fuel
      5. Transportation (equids, camels, oxen)
      6. Cooperative humting partners (dog)
      7. Control pests (cat, ferret)
      8. Scavenge debris (dog)
      9. Protection (dog)


    2. Associated with adoption of sedentary lifestyle by humans 10,000 to 12,000 years ago
    3. Control over animal populations allows them to become a predictable resource
    4. Animals can move with human populations (transportable resource)


  2. Hypothesized stages of domestication

    1. Limited contact, uncontrolled breeding
    2. Confinement by humans, uncontrolled captive breeding
    3. Control of breeding by humans (artifical selection)
    4. Artifical selection leads to development of breeds
    5. Persecution/elimination of wild competitors to domestics


  3. Characteristics of species that became domesticated

    1. Adaptibility (diet, habitat preferences)
    2. Tolerant of human contact, small flight distance
    3. Tolerant of conspecific contact (social) (NOT solitary, territorial)
    4. Dominance hierarchy
    5. Breed easily in captivity


  4. Changes associated with domestication

    1. Anatomical changes
      1. Smaller body size
      2. Smaller brain size
      3. Reduced dentition
      4. Greater variety of colors and more white in pelage


    2. Behavioral changes
      1. behavioral neoteny
      2. Slower reaction time
      3. Reduced flight distance
      4. More docile


    3. Reproductive changes
      1. Earlier puberty
      2. Larger litter sizes
      3. Loss of reproductive seasonality


  5. Artifical selection or evolutionary process?