For a long time, domestic cats and wild cats hardly mixed
For a long time, domestic and wild cats had little interest in mating and preferred to avoid each other. This is the result of genetic analyses carried out by an international team of researchers led by paleontologist Laurent Frantz from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich and Greger Larson from Oxford University.
The domestic cat (Felis catus) is the pet form of the African hawkcat, which arrived in Europe more than 2000 years ago via the Middle East. Since then, it has lived in the same distribution area as the European wild cat (Felis silvestris).
The experts have now analyzed the genome of wild and domestic cats, as the LMU announced. These included 48 recent samples and 258 samples from archaeological sites dating back up to 8500 years. The researchers investigated whether and to what extent interbreeding had taken place. The result: domestic and wild cats generally avoided mating.
To date, less than ten percent of the ancestry of most modern domestic cats can be traced back to wild cats. "Our studies show that the biology of domestic cats differs so much from that of wild cats that they would not normally interbreed," said Frantz. "This is probably because domestic and wild cats have adapted to very different ecological niches and exhibit different behaviors: Wild cats are solitary animals, while domestic cats can live in much higher densities."
However, if wildcats come under pressure and their population is endangered, this promotes mixing with the domestic cat. Researchers at the University of Bristol were able to prove this specifically for the Scottish wildcat population. Frantz was also involved in the study. The rate of hybridization could then increase rapidly. "This hybridization is a consequence of modern threats. Habitat loss and persecution have brought the wildcat to the brink of extinction in the UK," said Jo Howard-McCombe, lead author of the study.
According to the data, the Scottish wildcats are the most endangered population in the whole of Europe. For Germany, the results suggest that the populations here are probably not yet declining as rapidly and are therefore not yet under the same pressure. "We need more genomic data to be able to monitor the situation in the future and prevent us from facing the same problems as in Scotland," said LMU researcher Frantz.
The domestic cat, being a descendant of the African hawkcat, has lived in close proximity to its wild counterpart, the European wild cat, for centuries. Despite this shared habitat, the genetic analyses reveal that interbreeding between the two species is rare, with domestic cats demonstrating significantly different behaviors and ecological niches compared to their wild counterparts.
Source: www.dpa.com
