Abstract
A dog’s craniofacial diversity is the result of continual
human intervention in natural selection, a process that began tens of thousands
of years ago. To date, we know little of the genetic underpinnings and
developmental mechanisms that make dog skulls so morphologically plastic. In
this Perspectives, we discuss the origins of dog skull shapes in terms of
history and biology and highlight recent advances in understanding the genetics
of canine skull shapes. Of particular interest are those molecular genetic
changes that are associated with the development of distinct breeds.