Genomic approaches to identify hybrids and estimate admixture times in European wildcat populations.

ABSTRACT: The survival of indigenous European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) populations can be locally threatened by introgressive hybridization with free-ranging domestic cats. Identifying pure wildcats and investigating the ancestry of admixed individuals becomes thus a conservation priority. We analyzed 63k cat Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) with multivariate, Bayesian and gene-search tools to better evaluate admixture levels between domestic and wild cats collected in Europe, timing and ancestry proportions of their hybrids and backcrosses, and track the origin (wild or domestic) of the genomic blocks carried by admixed cats, also looking for possible deviations from neutrality in their inheritance patterns. Small domestic ancestry blocks were detected in the genomes of most admi

SUBMITTER: Mattucci F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6691104 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature