Biological and genetic changes
Traditionally, the main criteria for judging relationships between domestic or cultivated organisms and wild ancestors were similarities of structure and function, but cytogenetical examinations, particularly comparisons of chromosomes and chromosome sets, also are adding to the knowledge of the origins of domesticated organisms. With animals, morphological and biochemical (i.e., blood typing) studies are made.
During the 11,000 or 12,000 years that have passed since the beginning of domestication, the animals and plants that humans have selected as useful to them have undergone profound changes. The consequences of domestication are so great that the differences between breeds of animals or varieties of plants of the same species often exceed those between different species under natural conditions.
The most important consequence of domestication of animals consists of a sharp change in their seasonal biology. The wild ancestors of domesticated animals are characterized by strict seasonal reproduction and molting rhythms. Most domesticated species, on the contrary, can reproduce themselves at almost any season of the year and molt little or not at all. No less characteristic are the changes that occur in plants as a result of domestication. Their structure and general appearance may be drastically changed.
The elementary genetic mechanism that draws the recessive genes out from the cover of the wild genotype of the natural species also brings about the first domestication-dependent changes and the initial differentiation of a wild species into types that can serve as the basis for breed formation. Nature, in effect, has a store of various types and forms hidden as recessive mutations in every natural population of wild animals and plants. It is this accumulated mutation pool that is exploited by humans in breeding. Such interference, called artificial selection, plays a truly creative role in the formation of modern animal breeds and plant varieties to suit human needs.
Artificial selection differs considerably from natural selection, which creates stabilized biological systems that ensure the development of a normal, or so-called wild, phenotype—i.e., an organism containing a wealth of properties that preadapt it to a wide variety of environmental conditions and ensure continuation of the species. Artificial selection breaks down precisely these stabilized systems, thereby creating gene combinations that could not survive in nature and providing a range of new possibilities.