🔄FROM THE ARCHIVE: Rabbits are often misunderstood. But scientists are unraveling new research about our how our bunny companions were domesticated.
by the American Pet Product Association found that 2.5 million households now share space with domestic rabbits.
. The research team performed whole-genome sequencing of several population samples from wild rabbits in southern France and the Iberian Peninsula, plus samples from multiple breeds of domestic rabbits. They found that the animals adapted through polygenic selection — a process where a population adapts through small variations in genes located at different areas on different chromosomes rather than as the result of a single, fixed change.
It’s a satisfying, simple story — one that wraps up rabbit domestication in a tidy bow. There’s just one problem: It might not actually be true. For decades, the tale had been regarded as general knowledge, even commonly cited in scientific papers. “When you hear this story, there are so many elements that are intriguing that you don’t really bother to question its veracity,” says Larson. “I swallowed it, too.
Ultimately, Larson and his colleagues concluded that domestication is a process — not a single event with a fixed marker on a timeline. “As a species, we are just very bad at considering long-term change,” he says. “Stories work because they have a beginning, middle and an end, where you’ve got a direct arrow going through time. When we arrive somewhere, it’s very satisfying.
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