Limited hybridization between domestic sheep and the European mouflon in Western Germany

Schröder, Oskar; Lieckfeldt, Dietmar; Lutz, Walburga; Rudloff, Cara; Frölich, Kai; Ludwig, Arne

doi:10.1007/s10344-016-1003-3

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…This is significantly higher than what is observed today in the European mouflon, where births occur during a period of only 1 to 2 months (Hafez, 1952;Pfeffer, 1967;Garel et al, 2005;Tornero et al, 2016). Although the affiliation between the European mouflon and the domestic sheep's wild ancestor is not straightforward due to a complex history of fertilization and hybridization between wild and domestic populations (Poplin, 1979;Schröder et al, 2016), the European mouflon remains the closest living representative of early domestic breeds. A 3-to 4-month period is also longer than what was observed in the 8th millennium BC domestic sheep in the Near East (Tornero et al, 2016), while it is shorter than what is observed in most improved breeds (Hafez, 1952).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Animal Board Invited Review: Sheep birth distribution in past herds: a review for prehistoric Europe (6th to 3rd millennia BC)

Balasse

Tresset

Bălășescu³

et al. 2017

Animal

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In temperate latitudes sheep have a seasonal reproductive behaviour, which imposes strong constraints on husbandry in terms of work organization and availability of animal products. During the last 50 years, researchers have focused on understanding the mechanisms driving small ruminants' reproduction cycles and finding ways to control them. This characteristic is inherited from their wild ancestor. However, the history of its evolution over the 10 millennia that separates present day European sheep from their Near Eastern ancestors' remains to be written. This perspective echoes archaeologists' current attempts at reconstructing ancient pastoral societies' socio-economical organization. Information related to birth seasonality may be retrieved directly from archaeological sheep teeth. The methodology consists of reconstructing the seasonal cycle record in sheep molars, through sequential analysis of the stable oxygen isotope composition (δ 18 O) of enamel. Because the timing of tooth development is fixed within a species, inter-individual variability in this parameter reflects birth seasonality. A review of the data obtained from 10 European archaeological sites dated from the 6th to the 3rd millennia BC is provided. The results demonstrate a restricted breeding season for sheep: births occurred over a period of 3 to 4 months, from late winter to early summer at latitudes 43°N to 48°N, while a later onset was observed at a higher latitude (59°N). All conclusions concurred with currently held expectations based on present day sheep physiology, which, aside from the historical significance, contributes to the reinforcing of the methodological basis of the approach. Further study in this area will permit regional variability attributable to technical choices, within global schemes, to be fully reported.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Animal Board Invited Review: Sheep birth distribution in past herds: a review for prehistoric Europe (6th to 3rd millennia BC)

Balasse

Tresset

Bălășescu³

et al. 2017

Animal

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“…The current pattern of differentiation within Ovis has been influenced by multiple evolutionary and demographical events such as migration, introgression, mutation, genetic drift, adaptation and isolation, along with natural and/or human-mediated mouflon x domestic sheep crossbreeding (Barbato et al, 2017; Lauvergne, Denis & Théret, 1977; Schroder et al, 2016). Records of crossbreeding between feral and domestic sheep are available since Roman times (Pliny the Elder, 1906), and signals of domestic sheep introgression into mouflon have been reported using microsatellite analyses both in mainland and island populations (Guerrini et al, 2015; Lorenzini et al, 2011; Schroder et al, 2016). However, genome-wide scans recorded weak signals of sheep introgression into the majority of European mouflon populations, including the Corsican mouflon.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of an ancestral haplotype in the mitochondrial phylogeny of the ovine haplogroup B

Mereu

Pirastru

Barbato

et al. 2019

PeerJ

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BackgroundEuropean mouflon (Ovis orientalis musimon) has been reintroduced in mainland Europe since the 18th-century sourcing from the Sardinian and Corsican autochthonous mouflon populations. The European mouflon is currently considered the feral descendent of the Asian mouflon (O. orientalis), and the result of first wave of sheep domestication occurred 11,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, and brought to Corsica and Sardinia ca. 6,000 years ago, where they still live as autochthonous populations. However, this phylogeny is based on mitogenome sequences of European mouflon individuals exclusively.MethodsWe sequenced the first complete mtDNA of the long-time isolated Sardinian mouflon and compared it with several ovine homologous sequences, including mouflon from mainland Europe and samples representative of the five known mitochondrial domestic sheep haplogroups. We applied Bayesian inference, Maximum Likelihood and Integer Neighbour-Joining network methods and provided a robust, fully-resolved phylogeny with strong statistical support for all nodes.ResultsWe identified an early split (110,000 years ago) of the Sardinian mouflon haplotype from both sheep and mainland European mouflon belonging to haplogroup B, the latter two sharing a more recent common ancestor (80,000 years ago). Further, the Sardinian mouflon sequence we generated had the largest genetic distance from domestic sheep haplogroups (0.0136 ± 0.004) among mouflon species. Our results suggest the Sardinian mouflon haplotype as the most ancestral in the HPG-B lineage, hence partially redrawing the known phylogeny of the genus Ovis.

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“…The greater diversity is a result of higher frequencies of enJSRV-7 and lower frequencies of enJSRV-18 compared to modern samples. As noted in this regard they resemble primitive North European breeds [22,30,31]. These breeds are characterized by coarse wool that still possesses larger quantities of guard hair than the wool of economically important merino breeds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…As mentioned before in marginal areas of northern Europe older Bronze Age sheep lineages endured until today [22,30,31,32]. Since the improved wool lineages likely originated in the Middle East [30] and were initially more productive in a warm and dry climate, it is possible that they were unable to compete with the cold and wet climate-adapted European Bronze Age lineages in the harsher conditions of northern Europe.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Endogenous Retroviral Insertions Indicate a Secondary Introduction of Domestic Sheep Lineages to the Caucasus and Central Asia between the Bronze and Iron Age

Schroeder

Benecke

Frölich³

et al. 2017

Genes

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Sheep were one of the first livestock species domesticated by humans. After initial domestication in the Middle East they were spread across Eurasia. The modern distribution of endogenous Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus insertions in domestic sheep breeds suggests that over the course of millennia, successive introductions of improved lineages and selection for wool quality occurred in the Mediterranean region and most of Asia. Here we present a novel ancient DNA approach using data of endogenous retroviral insertions in Bronze and Iron Age domestic sheep from the Caucasus and Pamir mountain areas. Our findings support a secondary introduction of wool sheep from the Middle East between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age into most areas of Eurasia.

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Limited hybridization between domestic sheep and the European mouflon in Western Germany

Cited by 17 publications

References 19 publications

Animal Board Invited Review: Sheep birth distribution in past herds: a review for prehistoric Europe (6th to 3rd millennia BC)

Animal Board Invited Review: Sheep birth distribution in past herds: a review for prehistoric Europe (6th to 3rd millennia BC)

Identification of an ancestral haplotype in the mitochondrial phylogeny of the ovine haplogroup B

Endogenous Retroviral Insertions Indicate a Secondary Introduction of Domestic Sheep Lineages to the Caucasus and Central Asia between the Bronze and Iron Age

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