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Monitoring introgression in European wildcats in the Swiss Jura

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Abstract

Introgression is an important evolutionary force, which can lead to adaptation and speciation on one hand, but on the other hand also to genetic extinction. It is in the latter sense that introgression is a major conservation concern, especially when domestic species reproduce with their rare wild relatives. Hence, monitoring introgression in natural populations subject to hybridization is crucial to elucidate the threat represented by introgression. Here, we monitored introgression between wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) and domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) in a wildcat population in the Swiss Jura Mountains using systematically and non-invasively collected hair samples. We found 21 % admixed individuals based on 68 diagnostic nuclear SNP-markers, corresponding to a migration rate from domestic cats to wildcats of 0.02 migrants per generation. In contrast, gene flow from wildcats into domestic cats was negligible. Haphazard sampling of the same wildcat population, mostly via road kills, led to similar results. Hybridization occurred between wildcat male and domestic cat female and vice versa and, based on the occurrence of backcrosses, both female and male F1-hybrids seem viable and fertile. The observed hybridization pattern may indicate an expanding wildcat population with introgression as a byproduct of this expansion but alternative explanations cannot be excluded with the current data.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Thomas Briner (Federal Office of Environment) for initiating the Swiss wildcat monitoring project. We are grateful to the fieldwork-team: Benjamin Allen, Sébastien Balmer, Manuel Chalverat, Fernand Dupré, Claude Etienne, Jean-Pierre Flück, Blaise Hofer, Frédéric Maeder, Jean-Pierre Monnerat, Hans Riechsteiner, Jean-Claude Schaller, Thierry Studer, Mark Struch, Gabriel Sutter, Louis Tschanz, Hans Wampfler, Christian Zbinden; as well as to other persons providing cat samples: Marie-Pierre Ryser and Manuela Weber (Centre for Fish and Wildlife Health, Berne), Beatrice Blöchlinger and Stefan Hertwig (Natural History Museum Berne), Peter Flückiger (Natural History Museum Olten), Sunila Sen-Gupta (Natural History Museum La Chaux-de-Fonds), Martin Zimmerli (Natural History Museum Neuchâtel), Daniel Peier, Alain Seletto, Pierre Ecoffey, Pierre Henrioux, Patrick Boujon, Kerstin Murer, Eva Bader, Sabine Hasler. We are grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments, and to Mark Beaumont for helpful discussions about introgression and its detection. This work was funded by Lotterie + Sport-Toto-Fonds Solothurn, Zürcher Tierschutz, University Research Priority Program, Service des forêts, de la faune et de la nature du canton de Vaud, and Service de la Faune et de la Pêche de l’État de Genève. B.N., P.W., D.W., L.F.K. designed research; B.N., D.W. implemented fieldwork; B.N. performed labwork and data analyses, and wrote the paper with P.W., D.W., L.F.K.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    B. Nussberger, P. Wandeler & L. F. Keller

  2. Hintermann & Weber AG, Postfach, 4118, Rodersdorf, Switzerland

    D. Weber

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  1. B. Nussberger
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  2. P. Wandeler
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  3. D. Weber
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  4. L. F. Keller
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Correspondence to B. Nussberger.

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Nussberger, B., Wandeler, P., Weber, D. et al. Monitoring introgression in European wildcats in the Swiss Jura. Conserv Genet 15, 1219–1230 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-014-0613-0

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