Linked genetic variants on chromosome 10 control ear morphology and body mass among dog breeds

Background

The domestic dog is a rich resource for mapping the genetic components of phenotypic variation due to its unique population history involving strong artificial selection. Genome-wide association studies have revealed a number of chromosomal regions where genetic variation associates with morphological characters that typify dog breeds. A region on chromosome 10 is among those with the highest levels of genetic differentiation between dog breeds and is associated with body mass and ear morphology, a common motif of animal domestication. We characterised variation in this region to uncover haplotype structure and identify candidate functional variants.

Results

We first identified SNPs that strongly associate with body mass and ear type by comparing sequence variation in a 3 Mb region between 19 breeds with a variety of phenotypes. We next genotyped a subset of 123 candidate SNPs in 288 samples from 46 breeds to identify the variants most highly associated with phenotype and infer haplotype structure. A cluster of SNPs that associate strongly with the drop ear phenotype is located within a narrow interval downstream of the gene MSRB3, which is involved in human hearing. These SNPs are in strong genetic linkage with another set of variants that correlate with body mass within the gene HMGA2, which affects human height. In addition we find evidence that this region has been under selection during dog domestication, and identify a cluster of SNPs within MSRB3 that are highly differentiated between dogs and wolves.

Conclusions

We characterise genetically linked variants that potentially influence ear type and body mass in dog breeds, both key traits that have been modified by selective breeding that may also be important for domestication. The finding that variants on long haplotypes have effects on more than one trait suggests that genetic linkage can be an important determinant of the phenotypic response to selection in domestic animals.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1702-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Interactive responses of old‐field plant growth and composition to warming and precipitation

As Earth's atmosphere accumulates carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases, Earth's climate is expected to warm and precipitation patterns will likely change. The manner in which terrestrial ecosystems respond to climatic changes will in turn affect the rate of climate change. Here we describe responses of an old‐field herbaceous community to a factorial combination of four levels of warming (up to 4 °C) and three precipitation regimes (drought, ambient and rain addition) over 2 years. Warming suppressed total production, shoot production, and species richness, but only in the drought treatment. Root production did not respond to warming, but drought stimulated the growth of deeper (> 10 cm) roots by 121% in 1 year. Warming and precipitation treatments both affected functional group composition, with C₄ grasses and other annual and biennial species entering the C₃ perennial‐dominated community in ambient rainfall and rain addition treatments as well as in warmed treatments. Our results suggest that, in this mesic system, expected changes in temperature or large changes in precipitation alone can alter functional composition, but they have little effect on total herbaceous plant growth. However, drought limits the capacity of the entire system to withstand warming. The relative insensitivity of our study system to climate suggests that the herbaceous component of old‐field communities will not dramatically increase production in response to warming or precipitation change, and so it is unlikely to provide either substantial increases in forage production or a meaningful negative feedback to climate change later this century.