Data from: Genetic characterisation of dog personality traits

The genetic architecture of behavioural traits in dogs is of great interest to owners, breeders and professionals involved in animal welfare, as well as to scientists studying the genetics of animal (including human) behaviour. The genetic component of dog behaviour is supported by between-breed differences and some evidence of within-breed variation. However, it is a challenge to gather sufficiently large datasets to dissect the genetic basis of complex traits such as behaviour, which are both time-consuming and logistically difficult to measure, and known to be influenced by non-genetic factors. In this study, we exploited the knowledge that owners have of their dogs to generate a large dataset of personality traits in Labrador Retrievers. While accounting for key environmental factors, we demonstrate that genetic variance can be detected for dog personality traits assessed using questionnaire data. We identified substantial genetic variance for several traits, including fetching tendency and fear of loud noises, while other traits revealed negligibly small heritabilities. Genetic correlations were also estimated between traits, however, due to fairly large standard errors, only a handful of trait pairs yielded statistically significant estimates. Genomic analyses indicated that these traits are mainly polygenic, such that individual genomic regions have small effects, and suggested chromosomal associations for six of the traits. The polygenic nature of these traits is consistent with previous behavioural genetics studies in other species, for example in mouse, and confirms that large datasets are required to quantify the genetic variance and to identify the individual genes that influence behavioural traits.

犬类行为性状的遗传架构，不仅受到宠物主人、繁育者及从事动物福利工作的专业人士的高度关注，也吸引了研究动物（包括人类）行为遗传学的科学家的浓厚兴趣。犬类行为的遗传基础，得到了品种间差异以及部分品种内变异证据的支持。然而，解析行为这类复杂性状的遗传基础颇具挑战：此类性状的测量既耗时费力，又受后勤条件限制，且已知会受到非遗传因素的影响，因此难以收集到足够大规模的数据集。本研究依托主人对自家犬只的了解，构建了一个大规模的拉布拉多寻回犬（Labrador Retrievers）人格性状数据集。在控制关键环境因素的前提下，本研究证实，通过问卷数据评估的犬类人格性状可检测到遗传方差（genetic variance）。研究发现，衔取倾向、对巨响的恐惧等多个性状存在显著的遗传方差，而其余性状的遗传力（heritability）则极低，可忽略不计。研究还估算了性状间的遗传相关，但由于标准误（standard error）普遍较大，仅有少数性状对的估算值具有统计学显著性。基因组分析结果表明，此类性状主要为多基因遗传（polygenic），即单个基因组区域的效应较小，同时还发现6个性状与染色体存在关联。此类性状的多基因遗传特性，与其他物种（如小鼠）此前的行为遗传学研究结果一致，同时也证实，若要量化遗传方差并鉴定影响行为性状的单个基因，需要依赖大规模的数据集。