Abstract

Doc number: 185

Abstract

Background: Gene flow plays an important role in domestication history of domesticated species. However, little is known about the demographic history of domesticated silkworm involving gene flow with its wild relative.

Results: In this study, four model-based evolutionary scenarios to describe the demographic history of B. mori were hypothesized. Using Approximate Bayesian Computation method and DNA sequence data from 29 nuclear loci, we found that the gene flow at bottleneck model is the most likely scenario for silkworm domestication. The starting time of silkworm domestication was estimated to be approximate 7,500 years ago; the time of domestication termination was 3,984 years ago. Using coalescent simulation analysis, we also found that bi-directional gene flow occurred during silkworm domestication.

Conclusions: Estimates of silkworm domestication time are nearly consistent with the archeological evidence and our previous results. Importantly, we found that the bi-directional gene flow might occur during silkworm domestication. Our findings add a dimension to highlight the important role of gene flow in domestication of crops and animals.

Details

Title
Demographic history and gene flow during silkworm domestication
Author
Yang, Shao-Yu; Han, Min-Jin; Kang, Li-Fang; Li, Zi-Wen; Shen, Yi-Hong; Zhang, Ze
Pages
185
Publication year
2014
Publication date
2014
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
14712148
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1554715704
Copyright
© 2014 Yang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.