Domestic Cats Have Wiped Out the Scottish Wildcat. Only 'Hybrid Swarm' Remains (science.org) 45
Slashdot reader sciencehabit writes:
The Scottish wildcat--a fierce, solitary feline with striking stripes and a legendary reputation in Scotland--may be extinct, due to breeding with domestic cats. Domestic cats and European wildcats (a species to which the Scottish wildcat belongs) shared Europe for more than 2000 years without interbreeding, according to a new study. But around 70 years ago, something changed.
In the mid-1950s, more than 5% of the genetic markers in Scottish wildcats began to resemble those of domestic cats, according to a second new study. After 1997, that figure jumped to as high as 74%. In the wild, the markings of the Scottish wildcat became muddled and spotted, its short, bushy tail replaced by the long, thin tail of domestic cats. Today, the genome of the Scottish wildcat is so "swamped" with domestic cat DNA that the animal is "genomically extinct," the authors conclude. All that's left in nature is a "hybrid swarm," they write, a confused mix of wild and domestic DNA. "Everything these wildcats have evolved over thousands of years is being lost in a few generations," says the study's lead author, Jo Howard-McCombe, a conservation geneticist at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
The reason appears to be a shrinking wildcat population in Scotland—the last stronghold of the European wildcat in Britain—and human encroachment, both of which forced the wildcats to breed with domestic cats. The only hope may lie in a captive population of Scottish wildcats, which researchers have begun releasing into the wild, far from domestic felines. The team hopes that as the animals adapt to their environment over several generations, they'll begin to shed their domestic DNA. It may be an uphill battle, but the project's lead, Helen Senn, says, "We've got to start somewhere."
In the mid-1950s, more than 5% of the genetic markers in Scottish wildcats began to resemble those of domestic cats, according to a second new study. After 1997, that figure jumped to as high as 74%. In the wild, the markings of the Scottish wildcat became muddled and spotted, its short, bushy tail replaced by the long, thin tail of domestic cats. Today, the genome of the Scottish wildcat is so "swamped" with domestic cat DNA that the animal is "genomically extinct," the authors conclude. All that's left in nature is a "hybrid swarm," they write, a confused mix of wild and domestic DNA. "Everything these wildcats have evolved over thousands of years is being lost in a few generations," says the study's lead author, Jo Howard-McCombe, a conservation geneticist at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
The reason appears to be a shrinking wildcat population in Scotland—the last stronghold of the European wildcat in Britain—and human encroachment, both of which forced the wildcats to breed with domestic cats. The only hope may lie in a captive population of Scottish wildcats, which researchers have begun releasing into the wild, far from domestic felines. The team hopes that as the animals adapt to their environment over several generations, they'll begin to shed their domestic DNA. It may be an uphill battle, but the project's lead, Helen Senn, says, "We've got to start somewhere."
As Chef might say... (Score:2)
"The kitties made sweet love all night long."
Anyone who has heard cats mating will roll their eyes at that one.
Perhaps they should choose an island?
Re: (Score:2)
Few of the Scottish islands have significant stretches of (relatively) natural woodland with a good biodiversity. None have anything like enough woodland of the right sort to house the several hundred non-overlapping ranges needed for a reasonably stable population.
Keeping a smaller captive population, which you carefully out-breed to maintain high genetic diversity, and regularly releasing them into the wild population to keep that adequately mixed might work. On paper
Re:Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
A cat is a cat. That's why the researchers are nit-picking about coat patterns and tail fluff. All cats run the same software.
Re: (Score:3)
A cat is a cat. That's why the researchers are nit-picking about coat patterns and tail fluff. All cats run the same software.
Cat coat genetics is a complex and fascinating thing. Same software, but lots of different settings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
A cat is a cat. That's why the researchers are nit-picking about coat patterns and tail fluff. All cats run the same software.
Even Microsoft Cat? Or does that creature run Windows for Cat? /sarcasm
Seriously, I tend to think if Cats were OS then they would be various flavors of Linux. Different color coats on the outside and basically the same inside.
Windows Me(ow) (Score:2)
Anyone who had extended interaction with a cat will know that cats are clearly not open source.
Also, they tend to be resource hogs and will often freeze mid-execution or simply go to sleep for extended periods of time.
And then sometimes they will decide it is time to break your stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, a perfect description of Microsoft Cat.
And despite constant debugging that software this has mysterious & unpredictable issues.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A cat is a cat. That's why the researchers are nit-picking about coat patterns and tail fluff. All cats run the same software.
Not quite. Only a Scottish wildcat will reply "och aye n'fock off the noo!" when you say "here kitty!" to it.
Re: (Score:3)
If they were made extinct by interbreedeing, were they really a separate species?
Lions and tigers can interbreed yet no one would claim they are the same. Yes, they are cats, but they are not the same cats.
Re:Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:4, Interesting)
Lions & tigers are distinct (though semi-compatible), but jaguars & leopards are just different "races" of "panther"... leopards in the eastern hemisphere, jaguars in the western hemisphere. Put a male & female jaguar & leopard of appropriate breeding age together, and within months you'll have a 100% healthy litter of jaguleps or leguars that pretty much look like the average of their parents.
So, why do you never SEE jaguleps or leguars in zoos? Because a zoo that allows it to happen will keep it a secret, and quietly kill (oops, I mean, "euthanize") the cubs at birth to avoid getting sanctioned by organizations like the AZA & its international counterparts. Eugenics & racial purity are still aggressively embraced & enforced by zoos.
There's a sad story online somewhere about a zoo with one leopard & one jaguar that kept them separated by two fences for almost 15 years (to ensure they couldn't mate) until the female finally hit menopause, then they allowed them to finally live together & the two were inseparable for the rest of their lives. The zoo's excuse was that it was prohibited from doing
Re: Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:2)
Argh, accidentally hit submit.
(continued) any kind of surgical sterilization, and would have lost its AZA accreditation if it allowed the female to get pregnant. So, instead, it cruelly kept them separated for most of their lives.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it was as simple as the version you've recounted. It rarely is.
Re: (Score:3)
If they were made extinct by interbreedeing, were they really a separate species?
Polar bears and Grizzly bears can interbreed.
Which one of those do you think is not a species?
Re: (Score:1)
This seems to have gone over your head but, they're both the same species if they can produce fertile children.
Re:Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:4, Interesting)
This seems to have gone over your head but, they're both the same species if they can produce fertile children.
This seems to have gone over your head but that's not [berkeley.edu] a hard rule [nationalgeographic.org] (like almost everything else in biology).
One of the things that cause Grizzly's and Polar bears to be considered different species is the fact they live in different habitats. The exact same reason that the wildcats were considered a different species from domestic cats.
The problem is that the area was flooded with so many domestic cats, and humans with their domestic cats pushed into so many habitats, that they started interbreeding.
Re: Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:2)
So you consider black people and Asian people a different species? Most domestic dogs, coyotes and wolves, domestic cats, elephants, most bears are genetically identical and only differ in pigmentation, size and other local adaptations primarily due to environmental evolutionary pressures but they will breed perfectly well. It is possible they may eventually speciate another 100,000 to millions of years from now provided they can keep separate long enough.
Re: (Score:3)
So you consider black people and Asian people a different species?
No for a couple of reasons:
1) With "black people" you're only looking at skin pigmentation. If you're looking at genetic diversity you've got a lot more inside Africa than outside. Similarly "Asian" is a fantastically broad category.
2) Ignoring #1, you also don't have boundaries between human populations, just a vast continuum of sub-populations. Even before Europeans started sailing around people in South Africa always bred with people in Central Africa, and them with North Africans, and then the Middle Ea
Re: Another reason cats shouldn't be outsdie (Score:2)
The line between "habitat" and "culture" is fuzzy. Would a pizzly raised by a polar bear mother learn to hunt on the ice? Would a pizzly with a grizzly bear mother & extended family learn to hibernate (esp. the preparation part)?
Even with ligers, the lines get blurred. How much of a tiger's love for swimming due to being taught to swim by their mother, and how much of a lion's fear of drowning is due to never being taught to swim? The answer is, cultural knowledge matters a lot. Lion cubs raised from bi
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This seems to have gone over your head but, they're both the same species if they can produce fertile children.
That is not the only criterion for a species.
Polar bears and grizzlies can interbreed, and the hybrids are fertile. But they can't survive in the wild, because they have very different hunting and foraging behavior. Polar bears spend the winter on pack ice hunting seals. Grizzlies fatten over the summer by eating a largely plant-based diet and then sleep through the winter.
You can't split the difference. A hybrid can't follow either behavior pattern well so doesn't survive.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If they were made extinct by interbreedeing, were they really a separate species?
"Species" is a human invented concept that is necessary to describe and classify the different types living things. Sticking just to multicellular animals, there are a couple of dozen different definitions of species for different purposes. Two animals that cannot produce fertile offspring are definitely different species, but this has always been an inadequate general definition since two isolated populations can develop very different appearances, and behavior long before this genetic point of no return i
Re: (Score:2)
This is a total (Score:3, Funny)
Catastrophe.
So just like the local people (Score:2)
Think of it as evolution in action.
Trying to not be nitpicky but.... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's like those weird humans that left home most of a million years ago, and formed the "Denisovan" and "Neanderthal" populations. During the last millennium or
Re: (Score:2)
I find it interesting that humans seem to generally be a lot less interested in cat breeds than in dog breeds.
Most dog owners know the breed of their dog, even if it's not a purebred. If you ask the average cat servant they will tell you it's orange.
Re: (Score:2)
Most dog owners know the breed of their dog, even if it's not a purebred. If you ask the average cat servant they will tell you it's orange.
In the US they will tell you it's black or white, because those are the most popular colors.
Cats haven't been as aggressively bred as dogs, because they don't have to be, because the ones we keep are small. So there's not as much difference between the breeds.
Re: (Score:3)
>"I find it interesting that humans seem to generally be a lot less interested in cat breeds than in dog breeds."
Cats are more resistant to breeding in unusual or extreme traits compared to dogs. It is just their genetic makeup. For example, although cats have a wide variety of coat colors and patterns, body size/shape is extremely difficult to change without creating major health problems. So although there are many cat breeds, you simply can't come up with the stunningly different body shapes and ra
Re: (Score:1)
Scottish pussies (Score:2)
Scottish pussies are easy.
Re: (Score:2)
I enjoyed that which I have had. And yeah, pretty easy overall.
Natural selection... (Score:1)
...strikes again?
And wouldn't it be more accurate to say that scottish wildcats have now infected domestic cats with their DNA, thus spreading their genetic code further than ever before?
Isn't this adaptation? (Score:1)
They talked as if it was bad. Seriously, either science needs to decide if adaptation and hence evolution are a good or bad thing.
I can't comment, I'm one of the last 100 or so people that believe things were created.
Re: (Score:2)
For you, evolution is obviously a bad thing ; for the rest of the species, the same facts are considered a good thing. Happy to make everything clearer.