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. 2023 Aug;32(15):4133-4150.
doi: 10.1111/mec.16998. Epub 2023 May 29.

Genome-wide variant analyses reveal new patterns of admixture and population structure in Australian dingoes

Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 2 Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 3 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 4 National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Genome-wide variant analyses reveal new patterns of admixture and population structure in Australian dingoes

Kylie M Cairns et al. Mol Ecol. 2023 Aug.
. 2023 Aug;32(15):4133-4150.
doi: 10.1111/mec.16998. Epub 2023 May 29.

Affiliations

  • 1 Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 2 Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 3 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 4 National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Abstract

Admixture between species is a cause for concern in wildlife management. Canids are particularly vulnerable to interspecific hybridisation, and genetic admixture has shaped their evolutionary history. Microsatellite DNA testing, relying on a small number of genetic markers and geographically restricted reference populations, has identified extensive domestic dog admixture in Australian dingoes and driven conservation management policy. But there exists a concern that geographic variation in dingo genotypes could confound ancestry analyses that use a small number of genetic markers. Here, we apply genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping to a set of 402 wild and captive dingoes collected from across Australia and then carry out comparisons to domestic dogs. We then perform ancestry modelling and biogeographic analyses to characterise population structure in dingoes and investigate the extent of admixture between dingoes and dogs in different regions of the continent. We show that there are at least five distinct dingo populations across Australia. We observed limited evidence of dog admixture in wild dingoes. Our work challenges previous reports regarding the occurrence and extent of dog admixture in dingoes, as our ancestry analyses show that previous assessments severely overestimate the degree of domestic dog admixture in dingo populations, particularly in south-eastern Australia. These findings strongly support the use of genome-wide SNP genotyping as a refined method for wildlife managers and policymakers to assess and inform dingo management policy and legislation moving forwards.

Keywords: admixture; conservation; dingo; dog; hybridisation; population structure.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest Declaration

EAO is a co-author with the dog10K Consortium on a 2019 review article. KMC is co-chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Canid Specialist Group’s Dingo Working Group and a scientific advisor to the Australian Dingo Foundation, New Guinea Singing Dog Conservation Society and New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation.

Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Map drawn in QGIS depicting…

Figure 1.

Map drawn in QGIS depicting the sampling distribution of 307 wild dingoes across…

Figure 1.
Map drawn in QGIS depicting the sampling distribution of 307 wild dingoes across Australia. Dashed lines depict the geographical sampling regions defined as Western Australia (1), Central Australia (2), Northern Australia (3), Eastern Australia (4), Southern Australia (5) and the Big Desert (6). The Australian States are Western Australia (WA), Southern Australia (SA), the Northern Territory (NT), Queensland (QLD), New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), Tasmania (TAS) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The solid black lines indicate the position of Government maintained dingo exclusion fences.
Figure 2.

Figure 2.

FastStructure modelling of 543 canids…

Figure 2.

FastStructure modelling of 543 canids and 195,474 genomic SNPs for K=8–10. Samples grouped…

Figure 2.
FastStructure modelling of 543 canids and 195,474 genomic SNPs for K=8–10. Samples grouped according to geographic region or owner reported breed. The dingo populations are defined according to geographical sampling region: West Australia (WEST), Central Australia (CENTRAL), Northern Australia (NORTH), Eastern Australia (EAST), Southern Australia (SOUTH) and Big Desert (BIGDESERT) as per Figure 1. Dingoes from captive bred origin were grouped together as CAPTIVE. Domestic dog samples were defined as per owner-described breed groups including Vietnamese dog (VIET), Mixed breed (MIXED), Kelpie (KELPIE), Australian Cattle Dog (ACD), Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog (ASTCD), Border Collie (BORD), Golden Retriever (GOLD), German Shepherd (GSD), Labrador Retriever (LAB), Patagonian sheepdog (PGOD), Tervuren Shepherd (TURV) and Belgian Shepherd (BELS).
Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Average Dingo ancestry q-value with…

Figure 3.

Average Dingo ancestry q-value with 95% confidence intervals calculated from standard error across…

Figure 3.
Average Dingo ancestry q-value with 95% confidence intervals calculated from standard error across 10 FastStructure modelling replicates for K=8 based on 195,474 genomic SNPs with 543 canids. Animals were categorised as either a dingo, historical dingo backcross, recent dingo backcross, dingo x dog hybrid, recent dog backcross, historical dog backcross or domestic dog based on Table 1. Vietnamese dogs were distinguished from domestic dogs because of the shared evolutionary history of dingoes and South Asian dogs.
Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Principal coordinates analysis (PcoA) based…

Figure 4.

Principal coordinates analysis (PcoA) based on Nei distances for 543 canids based on…

Figure 4.
Principal coordinates analysis (PcoA) based on Nei distances for 543 canids based on 195,474 genomic SNPs constructed in SambaR. Samples are coloured based on FastStructure ancestry classification.
Figure 5.

Figure 5.

Map drawn in QGIS of…

Figure 5.

Map drawn in QGIS of the primary dingo population identity of 320 dingo…

Figure 5.
Map drawn in QGIS of the primary dingo population identity of 320 dingo and historical dingo backcross samples from the wild or captivity based on FastStructure modelling of 195,474 SNPs. Samples are coloured according to primary dingo population cluster identity as assigned by FastStructure. The solid black lines indicate the position of Government maintained dingo exclusion fences.
Figure 6.

Figure 6.

Principal coordinates analysis (PcoA) of…

Figure 6.

Principal coordinates analysis (PcoA) of Nei distances carried out in SambaR of 320…

Figure 6.
Principal coordinates analysis (PcoA) of Nei distances carried out in SambaR of 320 dingo and historical dingo backcross samples with less than 7% dog ancestry based on 195,474 genomic SNPs. Samples are coloured according to primary dingo population cluster identity as assigned by FastStructure.
Figure 7.

Figure 7.

F het (inbreeding coefficient) a…

Figure 7.

F het (inbreeding coefficient) a measure of homozygosity calculated in Plink v1.9 from…

Figure 7.
Fhet (inbreeding coefficient) a measure of homozygosity calculated in Plink v1.9 from 195,474 SNPs, as observed in the 5 distinct dingo population clusters, Big Desert, West, East, South and Captive. Fhet was also calculated for historical dingo backcrosses, recent dingo backcrosses and dingo x dog hybrids. Vietnamese dogs, domestic dogs, historical dog backcrosses and recent dog backcrosses were excluded from this analysis due to possible ascertainment bias.
Figure 8.

Figure 8.

Comparison between estimated proportion of…

Figure 8.

Comparison between estimated proportion of domestic dog ancestry observed in a set of…

Figure 8.
Comparison between estimated proportion of domestic dog ancestry observed in a set of 113 wild and captive dingoes using both SNP and microsatellite ancestry testing methods. Samples are grouped according to primary dingo population cluster identity as assigned by FastStructure: Big Desert, West, East, South and Captive.
Figure 9.

Figure 9.

Comparison of the occurrence and…

Figure 9.

Comparison of the occurrence and prevalence of dingo versus dog ancestry across Australia…

Figure 9.
Comparison of the occurrence and prevalence of dingo versus dog ancestry across Australia based on a 307 sample SNP dataset with 195,474 genomic markers (A, C) and a 5,036 sample dataset with up to 23 microsatellite genetic markers (B, D) from Cairns et al. (2021a).

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