Dogs, but Not Wolves, Lose Their Sensitivity Toward Novelty With Age.

ABSTRACT: Selection of behavioral traits holds a prominent role in the domestication of animals, and domesticated species are generally assumed to express reduced fear and reactivity toward novel stimuli compared to their ancestral species. However, very few studies have explicitly tested this proposed link between domestication and reduced fear responses. Of the limited number of studies experimentally addressing the alterations of fear during domestication, the majority has been done on canids. These studies on foxes, wolves, and dogs suggest that decreased expression of fear in domesticated animals is linked to a domestication-driven delay in the first onset of fearful behavior during early ontogeny. Thus, wolves are expected to express exaggerated fearfulness earlier during ontogeny compared to

SUBMITTER: Hansen Wheat C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6742907 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature