Mitochondrial diversity of Bulgarian native dogs suggests dual phylogenetic origin

Abstract

The dog has been the first domesticated animal to have a central role in human society from ancient times to present day. Although there have been numerous investigations of dog phylogeny and origin, genetic data of dogs in the region of the Balkan Peninsula (South-Eastern Europe) are still scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to perform phylogenetic analysis of three native Bulgarian dog breeds. A total of 130 samples were analyzed at HVR1 (hypervariable region, D-loop region). The samples were taken from two hunting dog breeds (Bulgarian Hound Dog: Barak, n = 34; Bulgarian Scenthound Dog: Gonche, n = 45) as well as from a Bulgarian Shepherd Dog (n = 51). The first two breeds are reared in a flat region of the country (the Northern part of Bulgaria, the Danubian Plain), while the last breed is a typical representative of the mountainous part of the country. The results have shown the presence of almost all main clades—A, B, C and D—in the three dog breeds taken together, except clades E and F, as expected. With regard to haplogroups distribution, there are clear differences among investigated breeds. While hunting breeds exhibit a prevalence of clade C, the mountainous Shepherd dog shows presence of the D2 haplogroup but absence of the C clade. In conclusion, the present study has been the first to investigate the mitochondrial DNA diversity of native dog breeds in Bulgaria. The results have revealed a clear difference of haplogroups dissemination in native hunting and shepherd dogs, which suggests a dual independent phylogenetic origin, without hybridization events between these dogs.

Evidence for Early European Neolithic Dog Dispersal: New Data on Southeastern European Subfossil Dogs from the Prehistoric and Antiquity Ages

“…These data are not very surprising, because clade B is widely and unusually distributed in recent Balkan wolf populations, identified in several studies [6,24,25,26,46]. These studies have proposed that clade B possibly originated from the Balkans, although there are some cases of B-type wolves worldwide.…”

“…The phylogenetic analysis was based on the archaeological dog samples used in this study, as well as on all available ancient DNA dog sequences in GenBank and the Dome tree [5,6,12,13,15,16,17,22,31,32,33,44] (Table S3). Ancient and recent wolves [6,22,24,25,26,45], as well as the recent Bulgarian native dog [46], (Table S3) were characterized using network analysis NETWORK 4.5.1.6 (Fluxus Technology Ltd.; available at ).…”

Population Dynamics in Italian Canids between the Late Pleistocene and Bronze Age

“…Four samples (IPC1, IPC8, IPC6 and FA8) matched no other sequences in the GenBank database. Moreover, PIC4 and ORD7 matched only modern dog samples, and in particular ORD7 matched with a modern Bulgarian Hound dog [82]. [67]; >100 modern dogs Four Bronze Age samples from Solarolo and Cesena (ORD3, ORD14, ORD20 and FA7) showed similarity with Late Pleistocene wolves and modern dogs.…”

Size does matter: Parallel evolution of adaptive thermal tolerance and body size facilitates adaptation to climate change in domestic cattle

“…In addition, mitochondrial diversity is also used to analyze the phylogenetic origin of breeds/populations (Liu, Cai, Liu, & Zhang, 2018;Marinov, Teofanova, Radoslavov, & Hristov, 2018). In domestic cattle, mitogenome analysis provides information regarding how functional traits like body size and tolerance are evolved in different lineages over temporal and spatial scales (Achilli et al, 2009(Achilli et al, , 2008 ).…”