ICCFGG 2022
#17 Modern breed ancestry and population dynamics of free-breeding dogs in Chernobyl, Ukraine Gabriella J. Spatola1,2 , Reuben M. Buckley1, Megan Dillon3, Emily V. Dutrow1, Jennifer A. Betz4, Małgorzata Pilot5,6, Heidi G. Parker1, Wieslaw Bogdanowicz5, Rachael Thomas3, Ihor Chyzhevskyi7, Gennadi Milinevsky8, Norman Kleiman9, Matthew Breen3, Elaine A. Ostrander1, Timothy A. Mousseau2 spatolagj@nih.gov 1National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD, USA, 2Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, South Carolina, USA, 3North Carolina State University, North Carolina, USA, 4Clean Futures Fund+, Godfrey, IL, USA, 5Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Gda ń sk, Poland, 6Faculty of Biology, University of Gda ń sk, Gda ń sk, Poland, 7State specialized enterprise “Ecocentre”, Chornobyl, Ukraine, 8Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, 9Columbia University, New York, USA As a result of the 1986 nuclear disaster, the environment surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine currently remains radioactively contaminated. Radionuclides released in the nuclear meltdown exposed inhabitants from nearby regions, forcing them to evacuate and abandon their belongings including pets. In the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a free-roaming dog population persists, amassing population sizes upwards of 1,000 individuals in recent years. As a first step towards understanding the genetic effects of continuous radioactive exposure on these animals, we sought to characterize the genetic structure and diversity of Chernobyl’s free-roaming dogs. We analyzed genetic relationships between individuals from different subpopulations within and outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and compared their genomic structure to village dog popula- tions from other parts of Ukraine and eastern Europe. Haplotype sharing analyses revealed shared identity-by-descent with modern purebred dogs consistent with that of village dog populations from other regions. Further identification of purebred ancestry-specific chromosomal segments retained in each subpopulation allowed us to characterize differences between the power plant and Chernobyl City subpopulations showing more recent contributions from western European breeds in the Chernobyl City subpopulation and isolation of the power plant subpopulation. In addition, kinship analyses revealed complicated family structures and gene flow between subpopulations. These findings highlight important aspects of the Chernobyl dog population’s genetic ancestry, providing a crucial foundation of knowledge for use in future studies aimed at uncovering how Chernobyl’s unique environment shaped the genomes of its canine inhabitants.
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