Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

Alexandra Jamieson; Alberto Carmagnini; Jo Howard-McCombe; Sean Doherty; Alexandra Hirons; Evangelos Dimopoulos; Audrey T Lin; Richard Allen; Hugo Anderson-Whymark; 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 Gotfredsen; 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-Fuentes; Carsten Nowak; Terry O'Connor; Joris Peters; Isa-Rita M Russo; Hannah Ryan; Alison Sheridan; Mikkel-Holger S Sinding; Pontus Skoglund; Pooja Swali; Robert Symmons; Gabor Thomas; Theis Zetner Trolle Jensen; Andrew C Kitchener; Helen Senn; Daniel Lawson; Carlos Driscoll; William J Murphy; Mark Beaumont; Claudio Ottoni; Naomi Sykes; Greger Larson; Laurent Frantz

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031

Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

Alexandra Jamieson, Alberto Carmagnini, Jo Howard-McCombe, Sean Doherty, Alexandra Hirons, Evangelos Dimopoulos, Audrey T Lin, Richard Allen, Hugo Anderson-Whymark, Ross Barnett, Colleen Batey, Fiona Beglane, Will Bowden, John Bratten, Bea De Cupere, Ellie Drew, Nicole M Foley, Tom Fowler, Allison Fox, Eva-Maria GeiglAnne Birgitte Gotfredsen, 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-Fuentes, Carsten Nowak, Terry O'Connor, Joris Peters, Isa-Rita M Russo, Hannah Ryan, Alison Sheridan, Mikkel-Holger S Sinding, Pontus Skoglund, Pooja Swali, Robert Symmons, Gabor Thomas, Theis Zetner Trolle Jensen, Andrew C Kitchener, Helen Senn, Daniel Lawson, Carlos Driscoll, William J Murphy, Mark Beaumont, Claudio Ottoni, Naomi Sykes, Greger Larson, Laurent Frantz

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

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.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	4751-4760.e14
Journal	Current Biology
Volume	33
Issue number	21
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031
Publication status	Published - 6 Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research used the University of Oxford’s Advanced Research Computing, the Queen Mary’s Apocrita, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum High Performance Computing facility, and the Smithsonian High Performance Cluster (SI/HPC) ( https://doi.org/10.25572/SIHPC ). A.J. was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NERC; NE/L002612/1 ) and a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant (DAAD; 57552336 ). L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants ( ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM ) and Natural Environment Research Council grants ( NE/K005243/1 , NE/K003259/1 , NE/S007067/1 , and NE/S00078X/1 ). L.F. and A.C. were supported by the Wellcome Trust ( 210119/Z/18/Z ). A.T.L. was supported by the George Burch Postdoctoral Fellowship . W.J.M. was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1753760 . This project also received funding from the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (AnimalFarm IRP). We would like to thank the Københavns Museum (KBM), Odense Bys Museer (OBM), Roskilde Museum (ROM), Viborg Museum (VSM), Svendborg Museum, and the National Museum (NM) for permission to sample the cat bones kept at the National History Museum of Denmark (NHMD), University of Copenhagen. We would also like to thank Wim Van Neer, Angela Wallace, Antoine Giacometti, Billy Quinn, Brian O'Donnchadha, Geraldine Stout, Mandy Stephens, Matthew Stout, Stuart Halliday, Carleton Jones, David McCullough, Donal Fallon, Finola O'Carroll, Matthew Seaver, Richard Crumlish, Ruairí Ó Baoill, and Valerie J. Keeley for assistance with sample acquisition and the late Mike Bruford for co-supervision of J. H-C. We are also indebted to the following institutions for their support: The Sussex Archaeological Society , York Archaeological Trust , National Museums Scotland , Manx Museum , Arch-Tech Ltd , CRDS Ltd , IAC Ltd , Moore Group , National Monuments Service (Ireland), National Museum of Ireland , National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and Royal Irish Academy .

Funding Information:
This research used the University of Oxford's Advanced Research Computing, the Queen Mary's Apocrita, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum High Performance Computing facility, and the Smithsonian High Performance Cluster (SI/HPC) (https://doi.org/10.25572/SIHPC). A.J. was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NERC; NE/L002612/1) and a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant (DAAD; 57552336). L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants (ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM) and Natural Environment Research Council grants (NE/K005243/1, NE/K003259/1, NE/S007067/1, and NE/S00078X/1). L.F. and A.C. were supported by the Wellcome Trust (210119/Z/18/Z). A.T.L. was supported by the George Burch Postdoctoral Fellowship. W.J.M. was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1753760. This project also received funding from the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (AnimalFarm IRP). We would like to thank the Københavns Museum (KBM), Odense Bys Museer (OBM), Roskilde Museum (ROM), Viborg Museum (VSM), Svendborg Museum, and the National Museum (NM) for permission to sample the cat bones kept at the National History Museum of Denmark (NHMD), University of Copenhagen. We would also like to thank Wim Van Neer, Angela Wallace, Antoine Giacometti, Billy Quinn, Brian O'Donnchadha, Geraldine Stout, Mandy Stephens, Matthew Stout, Stuart Halliday, Carleton Jones, David McCullough, Donal Fallon, Finola O'Carroll, Matthew Seaver, Richard Crumlish, Ruairí Ó Baoill, and Valerie J. Keeley for assistance with sample acquisition and the late Mike Bruford for co-supervision of J. H-C. We are also indebted to the following institutions for their support: The Sussex Archaeological Society, York Archaeological Trust, National Museums Scotland, Manx Museum, Arch-Tech Ltd, CRDS Ltd, IAC Ltd, Moore Group, National Monuments Service (Ireland), National Museum of Ireland, National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and Royal Irish Academy. Conceptualization, A.J. G.L. and L.F.; methodology, A.C. A.H. A.J. D.L. E.D. J.H.-C, L.F. N.S. O.L. R.A. R.B. and P.L.; resources, A.S. A.F. A.C.K. A.B.G. A.H. B.D.C. C.D. C.N. C.M. C.O. C.B. D. Griffith, D. Groß, E.D. E.G. F.B. G.T. H.R. H.S. H.A. I.M. I.M.R. J.H. J.B. J.P. L.A.L. M.B. M.S.S. N.S. N.M.F. P. Skoglund, P. Swali, R.S. S.D. T.O. T.Z. T.J. T.G. T.F. V.M. W.B. W.M. and Z.K.; writing, A.C. A.J. G.L. and L.F.; supervision, G.L. L.F. M.B. and N.S. The authors declare no competing interests.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

Keywords

Humans
Cats/genetics
Animals
Cattle
Bees
Sheep
Swine
Hybridization, Genetic
Chickens
Felis/genetics
Europe
Gene Flow

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10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031

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Cite this

Jamieson, A., Carmagnini, A., Howard-McCombe, J., Doherty, S., Hirons, A., Dimopoulos, E., Lin, A. T., Allen, R., Anderson-Whymark, H., Barnett, R., Batey, C., Beglane, F., Bowden, W., Bratten, J., De Cupere, B., Drew, E., Foley, N. M., Fowler, T., Fox, A., ... Frantz, L. (2023). Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats. Current Biology, 33(21), 4751-4760.e14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031

@article{a571c38c55664b5697dafa45fd8557c3,

title = "Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats",

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.",

keywords = "Humans, Cats/genetics, Animals, Cattle, Bees, Sheep, Swine, Hybridization, Genetic, Chickens, Felis/genetics, Europe, Gene Flow",

author = "Alexandra Jamieson and Alberto Carmagnini and Jo Howard-McCombe and Sean Doherty and Alexandra Hirons and Evangelos Dimopoulos and Lin, {Audrey T} and Richard Allen and Hugo Anderson-Whymark and Ross Barnett and Colleen Batey and Fiona Beglane and Will Bowden and John Bratten and {De Cupere}, Bea and Ellie Drew and Foley, {Nicole M} and Tom Fowler and Allison Fox and Eva-Maria Geigl and Gotfredsen, {Anne Birgitte} and Thierry Grange and David Griffiths and Daniel Gro{\ss} and Ashleigh Haruda and Jesper Hjermind and Zoe Knapp and Oph{\'e}lie Lebrasseur and Pablo Librado and Lyons, {Leslie A} and Ingrid Mainland and Christine McDonnell and Violeta Mu{\~n}oz-Fuentes and Carsten Nowak and Terry O'Connor and Joris Peters and Russo, {Isa-Rita M} and Hannah Ryan and Alison Sheridan and Sinding, {Mikkel-Holger S} and Pontus Skoglund and Pooja Swali and Robert Symmons and Gabor Thomas and {Trolle Jensen}, {Theis Zetner} and Kitchener, {Andrew C} and Helen Senn and Daniel Lawson and Carlos Driscoll and Murphy, {William J} and Mark Beaumont and Claudio Ottoni and Naomi Sykes and Greger Larson and Laurent Frantz",

note = "Funding Information: This research used the University of Oxford{\textquoteright}s Advanced Research Computing, the Queen Mary{\textquoteright}s Apocrita, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum High Performance Computing facility, and the Smithsonian High Performance Cluster (SI/HPC) ( https://doi.org/10.25572/SIHPC ). A.J. was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NERC; NE/L002612/1 ) and a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant (DAAD; 57552336 ). L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants ( ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM ) and Natural Environment Research Council grants ( NE/K005243/1 , NE/K003259/1 , NE/S007067/1 , and NE/S00078X/1 ). L.F. and A.C. were supported by the Wellcome Trust ( 210119/Z/18/Z ). A.T.L. was supported by the George Burch Postdoctoral Fellowship . W.J.M. was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1753760 . This project also received funding from the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (AnimalFarm IRP). We would like to thank the K{\o}benhavns Museum (KBM), Odense Bys Museer (OBM), Roskilde Museum (ROM), Viborg Museum (VSM), Svendborg Museum, and the National Museum (NM) for permission to sample the cat bones kept at the National History Museum of Denmark (NHMD), University of Copenhagen. We would also like to thank Wim Van Neer, Angela Wallace, Antoine Giacometti, Billy Quinn, Brian O'Donnchadha, Geraldine Stout, Mandy Stephens, Matthew Stout, Stuart Halliday, Carleton Jones, David McCullough, Donal Fallon, Finola O'Carroll, Matthew Seaver, Richard Crumlish, Ruair{\'i} {\'O} Baoill, and Valerie J. Keeley for assistance with sample acquisition and the late Mike Bruford for co-supervision of J. H-C. We are also indebted to the following institutions for their support: The Sussex Archaeological Society , York Archaeological Trust , National Museums Scotland , Manx Museum , Arch-Tech Ltd , CRDS Ltd , IAC Ltd , Moore Group , National Monuments Service (Ireland), National Museum of Ireland , National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and Royal Irish Academy . Funding Information: This research used the University of Oxford's Advanced Research Computing, the Queen Mary's Apocrita, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum High Performance Computing facility, and the Smithsonian High Performance Cluster (SI/HPC) (https://doi.org/10.25572/SIHPC). A.J. was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NERC; NE/L002612/1) and a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant (DAAD; 57552336). L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants (ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM) and Natural Environment Research Council grants (NE/K005243/1, NE/K003259/1, NE/S007067/1, and NE/S00078X/1). L.F. and A.C. were supported by the Wellcome Trust (210119/Z/18/Z). A.T.L. was supported by the George Burch Postdoctoral Fellowship. W.J.M. was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1753760. This project also received funding from the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (AnimalFarm IRP). We would like to thank the K{\o}benhavns Museum (KBM), Odense Bys Museer (OBM), Roskilde Museum (ROM), Viborg Museum (VSM), Svendborg Museum, and the National Museum (NM) for permission to sample the cat bones kept at the National History Museum of Denmark (NHMD), University of Copenhagen. We would also like to thank Wim Van Neer, Angela Wallace, Antoine Giacometti, Billy Quinn, Brian O'Donnchadha, Geraldine Stout, Mandy Stephens, Matthew Stout, Stuart Halliday, Carleton Jones, David McCullough, Donal Fallon, Finola O'Carroll, Matthew Seaver, Richard Crumlish, Ruair{\'i} {\'O} Baoill, and Valerie J. Keeley for assistance with sample acquisition and the late Mike Bruford for co-supervision of J. H-C. We are also indebted to the following institutions for their support: The Sussex Archaeological Society, York Archaeological Trust, National Museums Scotland, Manx Museum, Arch-Tech Ltd, CRDS Ltd, IAC Ltd, Moore Group, National Monuments Service (Ireland), National Museum of Ireland, National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and Royal Irish Academy. Conceptualization, A.J. G.L. and L.F.; methodology, A.C. A.H. A.J. D.L. E.D. J.H.-C, L.F. N.S. O.L. R.A. R.B. and P.L.; resources, A.S. A.F. A.C.K. A.B.G. A.H. B.D.C. C.D. C.N. C.M. C.O. C.B. D. Griffith, D. Gro{\ss}, E.D. E.G. F.B. G.T. H.R. H.S. H.A. I.M. I.M.R. J.H. J.B. J.P. L.A.L. M.B. M.S.S. N.S. N.M.F. P. Skoglund, P. Swali, R.S. S.D. T.O. T.Z. T.J. T.G. T.F. V.M. W.B. W.M. and Z.K.; writing, A.C. A.J. G.L. and L.F.; supervision, G.L. L.F. M.B. and N.S. The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors",

year = "2023",

month = nov,

day = "6",

doi = "10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031",

language = "English",

volume = "33",

pages = "4751--4760.e14",

journal = "Current Biology",

issn = "0960-9822",

publisher = "Cell Press",

number = "21",

}

Jamieson, A, Carmagnini, A, Howard-McCombe, J, Doherty, S, Hirons, A, Dimopoulos, E, Lin, AT, Allen, R, Anderson-Whymark, H, Barnett, R, Batey, C, Beglane, F, Bowden, W, Bratten, J, De Cupere, B, Drew, E, Foley, NM, Fowler, T, Fox, A, Geigl, E-M, Gotfredsen, AB, Grange, T, Griffiths, D, Groß, D, Haruda, A, Hjermind, J, Knapp, Z, Lebrasseur, O, Librado, P, Lyons, LA, Mainland, I, McDonnell, C, Muñoz-Fuentes, V, Nowak, C, O'Connor, T, Peters, J, Russo, I-RM, Ryan, H, Sheridan, A, Sinding, M-HS, Skoglund, P, Swali, P, Symmons, R, Thomas, G, Trolle Jensen, TZ, Kitchener, AC, Senn, H, Lawson, D, Driscoll, C, Murphy, WJ, Beaumont, M, Ottoni, C, Sykes, N, Larson, G & Frantz, L 2023, 'Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats', Current Biology, vol. 33, no. 21, pp. 4751-4760.e14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031

TY - JOUR

T1 - Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

AU - Jamieson, Alexandra

AU - Carmagnini, Alberto

AU - Howard-McCombe, Jo

AU - Doherty, Sean

AU - Hirons, Alexandra

AU - Dimopoulos, Evangelos

AU - Lin, Audrey T

AU - Allen, Richard

AU - Anderson-Whymark, Hugo

AU - Barnett, Ross

AU - Batey, Colleen

AU - Beglane, Fiona

AU - Bowden, Will

AU - Bratten, John

AU - De Cupere, Bea

AU - Drew, Ellie

AU - Foley, Nicole M

AU - Fowler, Tom

AU - Fox, Allison

AU - Geigl, Eva-Maria

AU - Gotfredsen, Anne Birgitte

AU - Grange, Thierry

AU - Griffiths, David

AU - Groß, Daniel

AU - Haruda, Ashleigh

AU - Hjermind, Jesper

AU - Knapp, Zoe

AU - Lebrasseur, Ophélie

AU - Librado, Pablo

AU - Lyons, Leslie A

AU - Mainland, Ingrid

AU - McDonnell, Christine

AU - Muñoz-Fuentes, Violeta

AU - Nowak, Carsten

AU - O'Connor, Terry

AU - Peters, Joris

AU - Russo, Isa-Rita M

AU - Ryan, Hannah

AU - Sheridan, Alison

AU - Sinding, Mikkel-Holger S

AU - Skoglund, Pontus

AU - Swali, Pooja

AU - Symmons, Robert

AU - Thomas, Gabor

AU - Trolle Jensen, Theis Zetner

AU - Kitchener, Andrew C

AU - Senn, Helen

AU - Lawson, Daniel

AU - Driscoll, Carlos

AU - Murphy, William J

AU - Beaumont, Mark

AU - Ottoni, Claudio

AU - Sykes, Naomi

AU - Larson, Greger

AU - Frantz, Laurent

N1 - Funding Information: This research used the University of Oxford’s Advanced Research Computing, the Queen Mary’s Apocrita, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum High Performance Computing facility, and the Smithsonian High Performance Cluster (SI/HPC) ( https://doi.org/10.25572/SIHPC ). A.J. was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NERC; NE/L002612/1 ) and a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant (DAAD; 57552336 ). L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants ( ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM ) and Natural Environment Research Council grants ( NE/K005243/1 , NE/K003259/1 , NE/S007067/1 , and NE/S00078X/1 ). L.F. and A.C. were supported by the Wellcome Trust ( 210119/Z/18/Z ). A.T.L. was supported by the George Burch Postdoctoral Fellowship . W.J.M. was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1753760 . This project also received funding from the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (AnimalFarm IRP). We would like to thank the Københavns Museum (KBM), Odense Bys Museer (OBM), Roskilde Museum (ROM), Viborg Museum (VSM), Svendborg Museum, and the National Museum (NM) for permission to sample the cat bones kept at the National History Museum of Denmark (NHMD), University of Copenhagen. We would also like to thank Wim Van Neer, Angela Wallace, Antoine Giacometti, Billy Quinn, Brian O'Donnchadha, Geraldine Stout, Mandy Stephens, Matthew Stout, Stuart Halliday, Carleton Jones, David McCullough, Donal Fallon, Finola O'Carroll, Matthew Seaver, Richard Crumlish, Ruairí Ó Baoill, and Valerie J. Keeley for assistance with sample acquisition and the late Mike Bruford for co-supervision of J. H-C. We are also indebted to the following institutions for their support: The Sussex Archaeological Society , York Archaeological Trust , National Museums Scotland , Manx Museum , Arch-Tech Ltd , CRDS Ltd , IAC Ltd , Moore Group , National Monuments Service (Ireland), National Museum of Ireland , National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and Royal Irish Academy . Funding Information: This research used the University of Oxford's Advanced Research Computing, the Queen Mary's Apocrita, the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum High Performance Computing facility, and the Smithsonian High Performance Cluster (SI/HPC) (https://doi.org/10.25572/SIHPC). A.J. was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NERC; NE/L002612/1) and a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant (DAAD; 57552336). L.F. and G.L. were supported by European Research Council grants (ERC-2013-StG-337574-UNDEAD and ERC-2019-StG-853272-PALAEOFARM) and Natural Environment Research Council grants (NE/K005243/1, NE/K003259/1, NE/S007067/1, and NE/S00078X/1). L.F. and A.C. were supported by the Wellcome Trust (210119/Z/18/Z). A.T.L. was supported by the George Burch Postdoctoral Fellowship. W.J.M. was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1753760. This project also received funding from the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (AnimalFarm IRP). We would like to thank the Københavns Museum (KBM), Odense Bys Museer (OBM), Roskilde Museum (ROM), Viborg Museum (VSM), Svendborg Museum, and the National Museum (NM) for permission to sample the cat bones kept at the National History Museum of Denmark (NHMD), University of Copenhagen. We would also like to thank Wim Van Neer, Angela Wallace, Antoine Giacometti, Billy Quinn, Brian O'Donnchadha, Geraldine Stout, Mandy Stephens, Matthew Stout, Stuart Halliday, Carleton Jones, David McCullough, Donal Fallon, Finola O'Carroll, Matthew Seaver, Richard Crumlish, Ruairí Ó Baoill, and Valerie J. Keeley for assistance with sample acquisition and the late Mike Bruford for co-supervision of J. H-C. We are also indebted to the following institutions for their support: The Sussex Archaeological Society, York Archaeological Trust, National Museums Scotland, Manx Museum, Arch-Tech Ltd, CRDS Ltd, IAC Ltd, Moore Group, National Monuments Service (Ireland), National Museum of Ireland, National Roads Authority (now Transport Infrastructure Ireland), and Royal Irish Academy. Conceptualization, A.J. G.L. and L.F.; methodology, A.C. A.H. A.J. D.L. E.D. J.H.-C, L.F. N.S. O.L. R.A. R.B. and P.L.; resources, A.S. A.F. A.C.K. A.B.G. A.H. B.D.C. C.D. C.N. C.M. C.O. C.B. D. Griffith, D. Groß, E.D. E.G. F.B. G.T. H.R. H.S. H.A. I.M. I.M.R. J.H. J.B. J.P. L.A.L. M.B. M.S.S. N.S. N.M.F. P. Skoglund, P. Swali, R.S. S.D. T.O. T.Z. T.J. T.G. T.F. V.M. W.B. W.M. and Z.K.; writing, A.C. A.J. G.L. and L.F.; supervision, G.L. L.F. M.B. and N.S. The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023/11/6

Y1 - 2023/11/6

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Humans

KW - Cats/genetics

KW - Animals

KW - Cattle

KW - Bees

KW - Sheep

KW - Swine

KW - Hybridization, Genetic

KW - Chickens

KW - Felis/genetics

KW - Europe

KW - Gene Flow

U2 - 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031

DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.031

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

C2 - 37935117

SN - 0960-9822

VL - 33

SP - 4751-4760.e14

JO - Current Biology

JF - Current Biology

IS - 21

ER -

Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats

Abstract

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