A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology

Allowen Evin; Joseph Owen; Greger Larson; Mélanie Debiais-Thibaud; Thomas Cucchi; Una Strand Vidarsdottir; Keith Dobney

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2017.0321

A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology

Allowen Evin, Joseph Owen, Greger Larson, Mélanie Debiais-Thibaud, Thomas Cucchi, Una Strand Vidarsdottir, Keith Dobney

Archaeology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)

13 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Domestic animals are often described as paedomorphic, meaning that they retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Through a three-dimensional landmark-based geometric morphometric analysis of cranial morphology at three growth stages, we demonstrate that wild boar (n = 138) and domestic pigs (n = 106) (Sus scrofa) follow distinct ontogenetic trajectories. With the exception of the size ratio between facial and neurocranial regions, paedomorphism does not appear to be the primary pattern describing the observed differences between wild and domestic pig cranial morphologies. The cranial phenotype of domestic pigs instead involves developmental innovation during domestication. This result questions the long-standing assumption that domestic animal phenotypes are paedomorphic forms of their wild counterparts.

Original language	English
Article number	20170321
Pages (from-to)	1-5
Number of pages	5
Journal	Biology Letters
Volume	13
Issue number	8
Early online date	9 Aug 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0321
Publication status	Published - Aug 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding
This project was supported by NERC (NE/F003382/1), the Leverhulme Trust (F/00128/AX) and a European Research Council grant (no. ERC-2013-StG-337574-UN- DEAD).

Acknowledgements
We thank the institutions and individuals that provided access to collections, especially the curators of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Genève; Museum für Haustierkunde, Halle; the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington; and the Natural History Museum, London. We thank Ardern Hulme-Beaman for his help during data collection, and Kieran McNulty, Julien Claude and Mathieu Joron for discussion and comments on the manuscript. We thank the reviewers of this work whose suggestions improved the manuscript.

Keywords

domestication
heterochrony
paedomorphism
ontogeny
Sus scrofa
geometric morphometrics

Access to Document

10.1098/rsbl.2017.0321Licence: CC BY

A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology
© 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Final published version, 503 KBLicence: CC BY

Data from: A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology
Evin, A. (Creator), Owen, J. T. D. (Creator), Larson, G. (Creator), Debiais-Thibaud, M. (Creator), Cucchi, T. (Creator), Vidarsdottir, U. S. (Creator), Dobney, K. (Creator) & Britton, K. (Data Manager), Dryad Digital Repository, 14 Jul 2017
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.c3f25
Dataset

Cite this

@article{8235fcd42df149c49f298747dfa6b3c3,

title = "A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology",

abstract = "Domestic animals are often described as paedomorphic, meaning that they retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Through a three-dimensional landmark-based geometric morphometric analysis of cranial morphology at three growth stages, we demonstrate that wild boar (n = 138) and domestic pigs (n = 106) (Sus scrofa) follow distinct ontogenetic trajectories. With the exception of the size ratio between facial and neurocranial regions, paedomorphism does not appear to be the primary pattern describing the observed differences between wild and domestic pig cranial morphologies. The cranial phenotype of domestic pigs instead involves developmental innovation during domestication. This result questions the long-standing assumption that domestic animal phenotypes are paedomorphic forms of their wild counterparts.",

keywords = "domestication, heterochrony, paedomorphism, ontogeny, Sus scrofa, geometric morphometrics",

author = "Allowen Evin and Joseph Owen and Greger Larson and M{\'e}lanie Debiais-Thibaud and Thomas Cucchi and Vidarsdottir, {Una Strand} and Keith Dobney",

note = "Funding This project was supported by NERC (NE/F003382/1), the Leverhulme Trust (F/00128/AX) and a European Research Council grant (no. ERC-2013-StG-337574-UN- DEAD). Acknowledgements We thank the institutions and individuals that provided access to collections, especially the curators of the Museum f{\"u}r Naturkunde, Berlin; Mus{\'e}um d'Histoire Naturelle, Gen{\`e}ve; Museum f{\"u}r Haustierkunde, Halle; the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington; and the Natural History Museum, London. We thank Ardern Hulme-Beaman for his help during data collection, and Kieran McNulty, Julien Claude and Mathieu Joron for discussion and comments on the manuscript. We thank the reviewers of this work whose suggestions improved the manuscript.",

year = "2017",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1098/rsbl.2017.0321",

language = "English",

volume = "13",

pages = "1--5",

journal = "Biology Letters",

issn = "1744-9561",

publisher = "ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY",

number = "8",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology

AU - Evin, Allowen

AU - Owen, Joseph

AU - Larson, Greger

AU - Debiais-Thibaud, Mélanie

AU - Cucchi, Thomas

AU - Vidarsdottir, Una Strand

AU - Dobney, Keith

N1 - Funding This project was supported by NERC (NE/F003382/1), the Leverhulme Trust (F/00128/AX) and a European Research Council grant (no. ERC-2013-StG-337574-UN- DEAD). Acknowledgements We thank the institutions and individuals that provided access to collections, especially the curators of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Genève; Museum für Haustierkunde, Halle; the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington; and the Natural History Museum, London. We thank Ardern Hulme-Beaman for his help during data collection, and Kieran McNulty, Julien Claude and Mathieu Joron for discussion and comments on the manuscript. We thank the reviewers of this work whose suggestions improved the manuscript.

PY - 2017/8

Y1 - 2017/8

N2 - Domestic animals are often described as paedomorphic, meaning that they retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Through a three-dimensional landmark-based geometric morphometric analysis of cranial morphology at three growth stages, we demonstrate that wild boar (n = 138) and domestic pigs (n = 106) (Sus scrofa) follow distinct ontogenetic trajectories. With the exception of the size ratio between facial and neurocranial regions, paedomorphism does not appear to be the primary pattern describing the observed differences between wild and domestic pig cranial morphologies. The cranial phenotype of domestic pigs instead involves developmental innovation during domestication. This result questions the long-standing assumption that domestic animal phenotypes are paedomorphic forms of their wild counterparts.

AB - Domestic animals are often described as paedomorphic, meaning that they retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Through a three-dimensional landmark-based geometric morphometric analysis of cranial morphology at three growth stages, we demonstrate that wild boar (n = 138) and domestic pigs (n = 106) (Sus scrofa) follow distinct ontogenetic trajectories. With the exception of the size ratio between facial and neurocranial regions, paedomorphism does not appear to be the primary pattern describing the observed differences between wild and domestic pig cranial morphologies. The cranial phenotype of domestic pigs instead involves developmental innovation during domestication. This result questions the long-standing assumption that domestic animal phenotypes are paedomorphic forms of their wild counterparts.

KW - domestication

KW - heterochrony

KW - paedomorphism

KW - ontogeny

KW - Sus scrofa

KW - geometric morphometrics

U2 - 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0321

DO - 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0321

M3 - Article

C2 - 28794276

SN - 1744-9561

VL - 13

SP - 1

EP - 5

JO - Biology Letters

JF - Biology Letters

IS - 8

M1 - 20170321

ER -

A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Datasets

Data from: A test for paedomorphism in domestic pig cranial morphology

Cite this