Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

Jamieson, Alexandra; Carmagnini, Alberto; Howard-McCombe, Jo; Doherty, Sean; Hirons, Alexandra; Dimopoulos, Evangelos; Lin, Audrey T; Allen, Richard; Anderson-Whymark, Hugo; Barnett, Ross; Batey, Colleen; Beglane, Fiona; Bowden, Will; Bratten, John; De Cupere, Bea; Drew, Ellie; Foley, Nicole M; Fowler, Tom; Fox, Allison; Geigl, Eva-Maria

Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Jamieson, Alexandra

Carmagnini, Alberto

Howard-McCombe, Jo

Doherty, Sean

Hirons, Alexandra

Dimopoulos, Evangelos

Lin, Audrey T

Allen, Richard

Anderson-Whymark, Hugo

Barnett, Ross

Batey, Colleen

Beglane, Fiona

Bowden, Will

Bratten, John

De Cupere, Bea

Drew, Ellie

Foley, Nicole M

Fowler, Tom

Fox, Allison

Geigl, Eva-Maria

Gotfredsen, Anne Birgitte

Grange, Thierry

Griffiths, David

GroàŸ, Daniel

Haruda, Ashleigh

Hjermind, Jesper

Knapp, Zoe

Lebrasseur, Ophélie

Librado, Pablo

Lyons, Leslie A

Mainland, Ingrid

McDonnell, Christine

Muà±oz-Fuentes, Violeta

Nowak, Carsten

O’Connor, Terry

Peters, Joris

Russo, Isa-Rita M

Ryan, Hannah

Sheridan, J A

ORCID

Sinding, Mikkel-Holger S

Skoglund, Pontus

Swali, Pooja

Symmons, Robert

Thomas, Gabor

Trolle Jensen, Theis Zetner

Kitchener, Andrew C

ORCID

Senn, Helen

Lawson, Daniel

Driscoll, Carlos

Murphy, William J

Beaumont, Mark

Ottoni, Claudio

Sykes, Naomi

Larson, Greger

Frantz, Laurent

ORCID

Date published

November 2023

Abstract

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