That's So Last Season: Unraveling the Genomic Consequences of Fur Farming in Arctic Foxes (Vulpes lagopus).

ABSTRACT: Humans have relied on animal fur for centuries, yet fur farming only began recently during the mid-19th Century. Little is known about this incipient domestication or the genomic processes involved. Domestication may involve founder effects, population bottlenecks and low population size, which, when combined with intense artificial selection, lead to inbreeding, a limited gene pool and reduced fitness. The arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) has been farmed intensively since the early 1900s and has been artificially selected for economic phenotypes. We investigated the origin of these lineages and the genomic consequences of intensive farming by comparing the genomes of farmed and wild arctic foxes from across their range. Our research indicates recent inbreeding through long Runs of Homozygosity

SUBMITTER: Cockerill CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12717966 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature