Ann-Sofie Sundman

Linköping University | LiU · Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

Epigenetic factors such as DNA methylation act as mediators in the interaction between genome and environment. Variation in the epigenome can both affect phenotype and be inherited, and epigenetics has been suggested to be an important factor in the evolutionary process. During domestication, dogs have evolved an unprecedented between-breed variati...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

This study reveals, for the first time, an interspecific synchronization in long-term stress levels. Previously, acute stress, has been shown to be highly contagious both among humans and between individuals of other species. Here, long-term stress synchronization in dogs and their owners was investigated. We studied 58 dog-human dyads and analyzed...

Background Dogs have human-directed social skills that allow them to communicate and cooperate with humans. We have previously identified two loci on chromosome 26 associated with human contact-seeking behaviors during an unsolvable problem task in laboratory beagles (Persson et al., 2016). The aim of the present study was to verify the single nucl...

Dogs are known to excel in interspecific communication with humans and both communicate with humans and follow human communicative cues. Two tests commonly used to test these skills are, firstly, the problem-solving paradigm, and, secondly, following human referential signals, for example pointing. The aim of the present study was to investigate wh...

Dogs were domesticated from wolves about 15,000 years ago, and an important selection pressure (intentional or unintentional) has been their ability to communicate and cooperate with people. They show extensive human-directed sociability, which varies within as well as between breeds and is not shared by ancestral wolves. Hence, dogs are potentiall...

Selection during the last decades has split some established dog breeds into morphologically and behaviourally divergent types. These breed splits are interesting models for behaviour genetics, since selection has often been for few and well-defined behavioural traits. The aim of this study was to explore behavioural differences between selection l...

Stress in animals causes not only immediate reactions, but may affect their biology for long periods, even across generations. Particular interest has been paid to perinatal stress, but also adolescence has been shown to be a sensitive period in mammals. So far, no systematic study has been performed of the relative importance of stress encountered...

Ethogram for undisturbed behaviour and novel object test. (DOCX)

Differentially expressed (DE) genes found among the top 1000 DE genes from each treatment in the parental generation. (DOCX)

Differentially expressed probes for each treatment group when comparing parents with their offspring. (DOCX)

Raw data for behavioural tests, corticosterone values and weights. (XLSX)

Ethogram used for the stress recovery/novel object test. (DOCX)