https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:2725 The expensive-tissue hypothesis may help explain brain-size reduction during domestication Lesch, Raffaela Raffaela Lesch 0000-0001-7151-252X University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Kotrschal, Alexander Alexander Kotrschal 0000-0003-3473-1402 Wageningen University and Research Fitch, W Tecumseh W Tecumseh Fitch 0000-0003-1830-0928 University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Kotrschal, Kurt Kurt Kotrschal 0000-0001-7254-4347 University of Vienna Kitchener, Andrew C. Andrew C. Kitchener 0000-0003-2594-0827 National Museums Scotland Landes Bioscience text eng Morphological traits, such as white patches, floppy ears and curly tails, are ubiquitous in domestic animals and are referred to as the 'domestication syndrome'. A commonly discussed hypothesis that has the potential to provide a unifying explanation for these traits is the 'neural crest/domestication syndrome hypothesis'. Although this hypothesis has the potential to explain most traits of the domestication syndrome, it only has an indirect connection to the reduction of brain size, which is a typical trait of domestic animals. We discuss how the expensive-tissue hypothesis might help explain brain-size reduction in domestication. Brain size; cranial volume; gut; intestine; neural crest http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:2725/download 10.1080/19420889.2022.2101196 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:605 application/pdf Communicative and Integrative Biology 15(1), 190-192 (2022) Communicative and Integrative Biology 15 1 190 192 438.02 kB 2022