This Open Educational Resource is accessible to the general public and made available for comments in an effort to educate, engage, and open a conversation about domestication. Our OER discusses the history of domestication along with the physical traits and behavioral characteristics that come along with it. Domestication species commonly develop a series of traits, these traits became known as domestication syndrome. Domestication syndrome ranges from physical traits like floppy ears and a curved tail, to behavioral like tail wagging or even genetically like a decrease in stress levels. A very popular study on domestication syndrome was the silver fox experiment by Dmitri Belyaev who bred silver foxes based on tameness. The study recorded when these domestication syndrome traits showed up and the study is still being conducted today. In addition to discussing the silver fox experiment, we also discussed the difference between foxes bred for fur and wild foxes and their impact. Our OER also briefly touches on other common domesticated species like rats, ducks and guinea pigs.

Creator

• Mora, Samantha
• Casserly, Matthew
• Rudnik, Katelin
• Nagy, Matthew
• Garcia, Sabine

Subject

• OER

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Keyword

• Domestication Syndrome
• Hybridization
• Fox
• OER
• Domestication

Advisor

• Bakermans, Marja

Year

• 2022

Date created

• 2022

Resource type

• Report

Major

• Biology & Biotechnology
• Environmental Engineering
• Interactive Media & Game Development
• Biomedical Engineering
• Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
• Computer Science

Rights statement

• In Copyright

License

• Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Last modified

• 2022-05-03