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. 2015 Mar 17;112(11):3191-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1501711112. Epub 2015 Feb 20.

Core questions in domestication research

Melinda A Zeder  1
Affiliations

Core questions in domestication research

Melinda A Zeder. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The domestication of plants and animals is a key transition in human history, and its profound and continuing impacts are the focus of a broad range of transdisciplinary research spanning the physical, biological, and social sciences. Three central aspects of domestication that cut across and unify this diverse array of research perspectives are addressed here. Domestication is defined as a distinctive coevolutionary, mutualistic relationship between domesticator and domesticate and distinguished from related but ultimately different processes of resource management and agriculture. The relative utility of genetic, phenotypic, plastic, and contextual markers of evolving domesticatory relationships is discussed. Causal factors are considered, and two leading explanatory frameworks for initial domestication of plants and animals, one grounded in optimal foraging theory and the other in niche-construction theory, are compared.

Keywords: domestication; ecophenotypic impacts; genetic impacts; mutualism; niche-construction theory.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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