More people globally depend on the water buffalo than any other domesticated species, and as the most closely related domesticated species to cattle they can provide important insights into the shared evolutionary basis of domestication. Here, we sequence the genomes of 79 water buffalo across seven breeds and compare patterns of between breed selective sweeps with those seen for 294 cattle genomes representing 13 global breeds. The genomic regions under selection between cattle breeds significantly overlap regions linked to stature in human genetic studies, with a disproportionate number of these loci also shown to be under selection between water buffalo breeds. Investigation of potential functional variants in the water buffalo genome identifies a rare example of convergent domestication down to the same mutation having independently occurred and been selected for across domesticated species. Cross-species comparisons of recent selective sweeps can consequently help identify and refine important loci linked to domestication.

与任何其他驯化物种相比，全球更多的人依赖水牛，作为与牛最密切相关的驯化物种，它们可以为驯化的共同进化基础提供重要的见解。在这里，我们对 7 个品种的 79 头水牛的基因组进行了测序，并将品种间选择性扫描的模式与代表 13 个全球品种的 294 个牛基因组的模式进行了比较。牛品种之间选择的基因组区域与人类遗传研究中与身高相关的区域显着重叠，这些基因座的数量不成比例也表明在水牛品种之间选择。对水牛基因组中潜在功能变异的研究确定了一个罕见的收敛驯化例子，直到同一突变独立发生并被选择用于驯化物种。因此，对近期选择性扫描的跨物种比较有助于识别和完善与驯化相关的重要位点。