Genomic reconstruction reveals impact of population management strategies on modern Galapagos dogs.

ABSTRACT: Free-breeding dogs have occupied the Galápagos Islands at least since the 1830s; however, it was not until the 1900s that dog populations grew substantially, endangering wildlife and spreading disease.^1,2,3,4 In 1981, efforts to control the population size of free-roaming dogs began.¹ Yet, there exist large free-roaming dog populations on the islands of Isabela and Santa Cruz whose ancestry has never been assessed on a genome-wide scale. We thus performed a complete genomic analysis of the current Galápagos dog population, as well as historical Galápagos dogs sampled between 1969 and 2003, testing for population structure, admixture, and shared ancestry. Our dataset included samples from 187 modern and

SUBMITTER: Spatola GJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11706705 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature