Ancient and Modern DNA for Diversity and Domestication of Animals
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2024 | Viewed by 391
Special Issue Editor
Interests: ancient DNA (paleogenomics); animal domestication; population genetics; phylogenetics; conservation biology; equine genomics; camelus genomics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The domestication of animals led to a major shift in human subsistence strategies, from hunting of wild animals and gathering of wild plants in nature, to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, which eventually resulted in the development of complex societies. During domestication, the phenotype and genotype of various animal species, such as dogs, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, and horses, have been substantially altered, allowing them to adapt to the human niche. Over the past millennia, farmers have managed their livestock in a sustainable way; however, over the last two centuries, selective pressures have increased to produce hundreds of well-defined breeds with desirable traits, leading to the loss of highly valuable farm animal genetic resources. The maintenance of genomic diversity is vital for selection and genetic improvement strategies, adaptation to environmental changes and pathogens, and population conservation. Therefore, comparative genomic studies on ancient and modern specimens are particularly important to reconstruct the process by which animals entered domestic relationships with humans and were subjected to novel selection pressures. With such genomic information, we can recognize and restore marginal and rare breeds and improve the genetic diversity in industrial breeds. The main goal of this Special Issue is to cover studies investigating past and present genomic diversities and biological consequences of domestication, particularly, but not only, in major farmed species and companion animals.
Dr. Elmira Mohandesan
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- animal domestication
- ancient DNA
- livestock
- genetic diversity
- feral populations
- selection
- adaptation
