War-hit dogs of Ukraine are experiencing natural disaster-scale changes

The war in Ukraine has claimed an unlikely victim - the stray dogs. Bombs and bullets have killed some of them, but a bigger impact has been seen on the natural selection of stray dogs. Scientists from the University of Lviv in Ukraine have found that dogs have witnessed “strong and fast natural selection” in the four years of war, and the effects are “comparable to large-scale natural or anthropogenic disasters.” Working with scientists from Poland and Austria, the Ukrainian researchers studied 763 dogs across three regions: the east frontline, “dangerous territories" at the centre, and relatively safe western regions, IFL Science reported. They noted that dogs living in areas hugely affected by the war had different physical traits that helped them survive. Those living closer to the frontline had “wild-type” traits, smaller bodies, pointier ears, and longer snouts, instead of features that are pleasing to the human eye. This is what helped them endure the harshness of the region. The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Applications.

Human beings are hardly present in the dangerous regions and places close to the action, causing a scarcity of food for the dogs. In the absence of someone to regularly provide them with food, the dogs’ bodies have become smaller. Dogs with floppy ears and cute snouts were extremely rare in regions that witnessed constant gunfire. Such places also hardly had any old or sick dogs since they could not survive the artillery and isolation. “Our study shows that wars can be factors of strong and fast natural selection, with the effects comparable to large-scale natural or anthropogenic disasters,” the authors wrote in the study.

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Domestic dogs faced hardships surviving without humans

The findings showed that dogs that were domesticated found it tough to adapt to the change, making survival and reproduction difficult. The free-ranging domestic dogs had injuries and were sick. Some of them were missing limbs, lost their eyes, had open wounds, scars, skin diseases, etc. They even found dogs that had turned so aggressive that they could not be approached. They found them eating human corpses in the open.

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“These dogs were Laika-type (spitz-type dogs, with wolf-like body proportions), avoided humans and were aggressive when approached; therefore, they could not be sampled,” the researchers wrote. It is not clear whether changes could cause a long-term molecular evolution at the genetic level because of the relatively short timeframe with respect to dog generations. Nevertheless, there is natural selection happening, and the pressures could have an impact on the genetic level.