Coat genetic markers of the domestic cat Felis catus (Felidae) from southwestern Colombia

Abstract

Objectives. Establish the genetic profiles of cats from 12 neighboring municipalities in southwestern Colombia, in a town course from Pereira-Popayán. Estimate the degree of diversity, genetic structure, and quantify gene flow. Materials and methods. Were inventoried the phenotypic markers present in the pigmentation and structure of the coat of 1482 cats of the municipalities surveyed. Based on these phenotypic frequencies, allele frequencies, heterozygosity, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, F statistics and Nei genetic distances were calculated. A comparison was also made between genetic and geographic distance matrices to determine if there was a significant association between the two. Results. With the genetic profiles of the populations we estimated the degree of diversity. We found the populations in equilibrium for the S autosomal locus and for the O sex-linked locus. We found a low level genetic structure, and it was determined that there was no significant correlation between the genetic and geographic distance matrices among populations. Conclusions: These findings can be explained on the basis of the processes of human displacement for this region, due to the fact that the establishment of feline populations in these municipalities originated during the same historical period. Identical genetic profiles are shared as a result of colonization events, and due to possible continued migration among these populations.Key Words: Historical migration, pigmentation genes, population genetics, regional scale (Source: CAB, DeCS). RESUMENObjetivos. Determinar los perfiles genéticos de los gatos de 12 municipios contiguos del suroccidente colombiano en un trayecto Pereira-Popayán; estimar el grado de diversidad, estructura genética y cuantificar el flujo de genes. Materiales y métodos. Se inventariaron los marcadores fenotípicos presentes en la pigmentación y estructura del pelaje de 1482 gatos de los municipios estudiados, con base en estas frecuencias fenotípicas se calcularon frecuencias alélicas, heterocigosidad, equilibrio Hardy-Weinberg, el estadístico F ST y distancias genéticas de Nei. También se realizó una comparación entre matrices de distancia genética y geográfica para determinar si existía asociación significativa entre 5391 las dos. Resultados. Con los perfiles genéticos de las poblaciones se estimó el grado de diversidad, se halló en equilibrio Hardy-Weinberg a las poblaciones para el locus autosómico S y el locus ligado al sexo O. Se encontró bajo nivel de estructura genética y se determinó que no existe correlación significativa entre las matrices de distancia genética y geográfica entre poblaciones. Conclusiones. Estos hallazgos se pueden explicar con base en los procesos de desplazamiento humano para esta región, debido a que el establecimiento de poblaciones felinas en estos municipios se originó en el mismo período histórico. Se comparten perfiles genéticos idénticos como resultado, posiblemente, de eventos de colonización y migración continua entre estas poblaciones.Palabras clave: esca...

Population genetics in multiple scales: Genetic microstructure of a cat population in Colombia

“…The genetic profile of the cat population described in this study does not differ significantly from the previous study by PEÑA-CRUZ et al (2015), considering the city of Cali as a single population. The high gene flow, the low population structure, the high frequencies of the a allele and the low frequencies of the W allele are characteristics that it shares with the other Colombian cities despite the differences in size, number of inhabitants and climatic differences (RUÍZ-GARCÍA et al, 1999;MONTES-DÍAZ et al, 2015;PARDO et al, 2015;PEÑUELA et al, 2016;PARDO et al, 2017a;2017b). This is due to the European origin of the population of Colombian domestic cats, explained by the hypothesis of historical migration at the time of the conquest (RUÍZ-GARCÍA et al, 1999;PEÑUELA et al, 2016;PARDO et al, 2017a).…”

“…The high gene flow, the low population structure, the high frequencies of the a allele and the low frequencies of the W allele are characteristics that it shares with the other Colombian cities despite the differences in size, number of inhabitants and climatic differences (RUÍZ-GARCÍA et al, 1999;MONTES-DÍAZ et al, 2015;PARDO et al, 2015;PEÑUELA et al, 2016;PARDO et al, 2017a;2017b). This is due to the European origin of the population of Colombian domestic cats, explained by the hypothesis of historical migration at the time of the conquest (RUÍZ-GARCÍA et al, 1999;PEÑUELA et al, 2016;PARDO et al, 2017a). In contrast to the stochastic processes at the microgeographic scale, which have been used as a tentative explanation for the configuration of the genetic profiles in each of the Colombian cities, the association with urban variables entails a greater presence of people, which directly influences the allele frequencies of coat genes in domestic cats (PEÑA-CRUZ and PATIÑO-MONTOYA, 2017).…”

“…For the species, more than 400 populations from around the world have been genetically characterized, showing an association of genetic diversity with the history of human migrations (RUÍZ-GARCÍA and ÁLVAREZ, 2008). Although the strong association between cats and humans has been seen as a product of an artificial selection process (PONTIER et al, 1995), it is known that domestic cat populations worldwide are in panmixia due to some attributes of their natural history, such as iteroparous reproduction and a complex social structure (RUÍZ-GARCÍA, 1994; RUÍZ-GARCÍA and KLEIN, 1997;PEÑUELA et al, 2016). According to the above, the hypothesis of genetic stability was formulated, which postulates that domestic cat populations maintain their genetic diversity constant over time (PEÑA-CRUZ and PATIÑO-MONTOYA, 2017), relegating the hypothesis of novelty or artificial selection to a spatial scale and specific time as well as other stochastic processes.…”

“…Currently, the genetic profile of cats has been inventoried in many cities of Colombia (RUÍZ-GARCÍA and PEÑUELA and CÁRDENAS, 2012;PARDO et al, 2015;PEÑA-CRUZ et al, 2015;PARDO et al, 2016;PEÑUELA et al, 2016;CAUSIL-VARGAS et al, 2017;PARDO et al, 2017a;PARDO et al, 2017b;PARDO-PÉREZ et al, 2017;LEMOS et al, 2019). The city of Cali has been previously studied at the macrogeographic level by RUÍZ-GARCÍA and ÁLVAREZ (1999), andPEÑUELA et al (2016). Nevertheless, at the microgeographic level, PEÑA-CRUZ et al…”

Genetic characterisation of the domestic cat population (Felis catus) in Valledupar – Cesar using coat markers

“…Cats are an excellent species for population genetic variability analysis due to their universal distribution and panmictic populations (Peñuela et al, 2016). The frequencies of wild-type and mutant coat gene markers in cats are specific to each population and reveal their genetic structure (Todd, 1977).…”