Data from: Complex patterns of sex-biased demography in canines

The demographic history of dogs is complex, involving multiple
bottlenecks, admixture events and artificial selection. However, existing
genetic studies have not explored variance in the number of reproducing
males and females, and whether it has changed across evolutionary time.
While male-biased mating practices, such as male-biased migration and
multiple paternity, have been observed in wolves, recent breeding
practices could have led to female-biased mating patterns in breed dogs.
For example, breed dogs are thought to have experienced a popular sire
effect, where a small number of males father many offspring with a large
number of females. Here we use genetic variation data to test how
widespread sex-biased mating practices in canines are during different
evolutionary time points. Using whole-genome sequence data from 33 dogs
and wolves, we show that patterns of diversity on the X chromosome and
autosomes are consistent with a higher number of reproducing males than
females over ancient evolutionary history in both dogs and wolves,
suggesting that mating practices did not change during early dog
domestication. By contrast, since breed formation, we found evidence for a
larger number of reproducing females than males in breed dogs, consistent
with the popular sire effect. Our results confirm that canine demography
has been complex, with opposing sex-biased processes occurring throughout
their history. The signatures observed in genetic data are consistent with
documented sex-biased mating practices in both the wild and domesticated
populations, suggesting that these mating practices are pervasive.