Trait heritability is necessary for evolution by both natural and artificial selection, yet we know little about the heritability of cognitive traits. Domestic dogs are a valuable study system for questions regarding the evolution of phenotypic diversity due to their extraordinary intraspecific variation. While previous studies have investigated morphological and behavioral variation across dog breeds, few studies have systematically assessed breed differences in cognition. We integrated data from Dognition.com—a citizen science project on dog cognition—with breed-averaged genetic data from published sources to estimate the among-breed heritability of cognitive traits using mixed models. The resulting dataset included 11 cognitive measures for 1508 adult dogs across 36 breeds. A factor analysis yielded four factors interpreted as reflecting inhibitory control, communication, memory, and physical reasoning. Narrow-sense among-breed heritability estimates—reflecting the proportion of cognitive variance attributable to additive genetic variation—revealed that scores on the inhibitory control and communication factors were highly heritable (inhibitory control: h² = 0.70; communication: h² = 0.39), while memory and physical reasoning were less heritable (memory: h² = 0.17; physical reasoning: h² = 0.21). Although the heritability of inhibitory control is partially explained by body weight, controlling for breed-average weight still yields a high heritability estimate (h² = 0.50), while other factors are minimally affected. Our results indicate that cognitive phenotypes in dogs covary with breed relatedness and suggest that cognitive traits have strong potential to undergo selection. The highest heritabilities were observed for inhibitory control and communication, both of which are hypothesized to have been altered by domestication.

中文翻译：

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估计犬种认知特征的遗传性揭示了高度遗传的抑制控制和交流因素。

自然和人工选择的进化都需要性状遗传性，但我们对认知性状的遗传性知之甚少。由于其非凡的种内变异，家犬是有关表型多样性进化问题的宝贵研究系统。虽然之前的研究调查了不同犬种的形态和行为变化，但很少有研究系统地评估品种在认知方面的差异。我们将来自 Dognition.com 的数据（一个关于狗认知的公民科学项目）与来自公开来源的品种平均遗传数据相结合，以使用混合模型估计认知特征的品种间遗传力。由此产生的数据集包括 36 个品种的 1508 只成年犬的 11 项认知测量。因素分析产生了四个因素，解释为反映抑制控制、交流、记忆和物理推理。狭义的品种间遗传力估计——反映可归因于加性遗传变异的认知方差的比例——揭示了抑制控制和交流因素的分数是高度可遗传的（抑制控制：h ²  = 0.70；交流：h ²  = 0.39），而记忆和物理推理的遗传性较差（记忆：h ²  = 0.17；物理推理：h ²  = 0.21）。虽然抑制控制的遗传力部分由体重解释，控制品种平均体重仍然产生高遗传力估计（h ² = 0.50)，而其他因素的影响最小。我们的结果表明，狗的认知表型随品种相关性而变化，并表明认知特征具有很强的选择潜力。在抑制控制和交流方面观察到最高的遗传力，这两者都被假设已被驯化改变。