Darwin's Ark
Open-source canine science with 40,000+ owner-uploaded dogs and growing.
Darwin's Ark is the open citizen-science project that asks dog owners to upload survey data and (optionally) DNA. It powers the Karlsson lab's research on canine behavior, breed identity, and the genetic architecture of complex traits in mixed-breed populations. As of recent releases, the project has data from over 40,000 dogs, with full sequencing released under permissive open-data licenses.
Darwin's Ark is the open-data counterpart to CanVAS. It's not yet in the Sniff Atlas (CanVAS is the v1 substrate), but the next major Atlas expansion plans to ingest the Darwin's Ark mixed-breed dogs: they are the population CanVAS underrepresents most. When that lands, Atlas coverage of mixed-breed dogs will roughly 5x.
- Morrill et al. Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes. doi:10.1126/science.abk0639