Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031
• Publication Date: 2023-11-06T15:34:57Z
• Authors: Alexandra Jamieson; Alberto Carmagnini; Jo Howard-McCombe; Sean Doherty; Alexandra Hirons; Evangelos Dimopoulos; Audrey T. Lin; Richard Allen; Hugo Anderson-Why...; Ross Barnett; Colleen Batey; Fiona Beglane; Will Bowden; John Bratten; Bea De Cupere; Ellie Drew; Nicole M. Foley; Tom Fowler; Allison Fox; Eva-Maria Geigl; Anne Birgitte Got...; Thierry Grange; David Griffiths; Daniel Groß; Ashleigh Haruda; Jesper Hjermind; Zoe Knapp; Ophélie Lebrasseur; Pablo Librado; Leslie A. Lyons; Ingrid Mainland; Christine McDonnell; Violeta Muñoz-Fue...; Carsten Nowak; Terry O’Connor; Joris Peters; Isa-Rita M. Russo; Hannah Ryan; Alison Sheridan; Mikkel-Holger S. ...; Pontus Skoglund; Pooja Swali; Robert Symmons; Gabor Thomas; Theis Zetner Trol...; Andrew C. Kitchener; Helen Senn; Daniel Lawson; Carlos Driscoll; William J. Murphy; Mark Beaumont; Claudio Ottoni; Naomi Sykes; Greger Larson; Laurent Frantz
• Keywords: Reproductive isolation

Domestic cats were derived from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis lybica), after which they dispersed with people into Europe. As did so, it is possible that interbred indigenous population of European wildcats silvestris). Gene flow between incoming domestic animals and closely related wild species has been previously demonstrated in other taxa, including pigs, sheep, goats, bees, chickens, cattle. In case cats, a lack nuclear, genome-wide data, particularly wildcats, made difficult to either detect or quantify this possibility. To address these issues, we generated 75 ancient mitochondrial genomes, 14 nuclear 31 modern genomes wildcats. Our results demonstrate despite cohabitating for at least 2,000 years on mainland Britain, most possessed less than 10% their ancestry little no cats. The antiquity strength reproductive isolation introduced local was likely result behavioral ecological differences. Intriguingly, long-lasting currently being eroded parts species' distribution as anthropogenic activities.