Spatio‐temporal sharing between the European wildcat, the domestic cat and their hybrids

Abstract

The European wildcat Felis silvestris silvestris, which can hybridize with the domestic cat Felis catus to produce fertile hybrids, is threatened by hybridization. To identify the behavioural processes that can affect interbreeding, we investigated the spatio-temporal sharing between wildcats, domestic cats and their hybrids (defined on their genotypes) in a rural area of north-eastern France where hybridization is frequent. Wildcats' and hybrids' home ranges were larger than those of domestic cats, and they did not vary according to body mass, season and reproductive period. The three types of cats had similar daily activity rhythms but the concordance between their space use patterns was low or null. Thus, a high spatio-temporal concordance is not a prerequisite for hybridization. Rare excursions made by the cats outside of their home ranges may be at the origin of interbreeding. Moreover, hybrids may play a key role in hybridization by behaving as wildcats and by sharing at least a part of their range with them as well as with domestic cats. Behavioural barriers between them and wildcats may not exist because of their similarity in morphology and spatial behaviour.

The fine-scale utilization of forest edges by mammalian mesopredators related to patch size and conservation issues in Central European farmland

“…We believe that the utilization of smaller forest fragments in our study is associated with the greater and more diverse food availability, especially small mammals, birds, insects and fruits, which are mainly associated with open farmland, urban residences, or other human-related resources (Tellería et al 1991;Austen et al 2001). This should also be true for the domestic cat Felis catus; however its activity is mainly concentrated in the vicinity of human settlements (Barratt 1997;Germain et al 2008).…”

Toward a genome-wide approach for detecting hybrids: informative SNPs to detect introgression between domestic cats and European wildcats (Felis silvestris)

“…Previous studies clearly show that the development of more powerful tools is still critical to accurately identify parental and hybrid individuals of this species because of the high similarity in morphology and genomes of wild and domestic forms. Although microsatellites have been the dominant markers in wildcat genetic studies (for example, Beaumont et al, 2001;Randi et al, 2001;Pierpaoli et al, 2003;Lecis et al, 2006;Germain et al, 2008;Eckert et al, 2010;O'Brien et al, 2009), and recently mtDNA diagnostic SNPs have been suggested (Driscoll et al, 2011), the increasing availability and numerous advantages of nuclear SNPs make them an appealing alternative and/or a complement to maternal and paternal lineage markers. SNPs have been attracting a growing interest in a wide range of evolutionary applications and are becoming efficient tools among wildlife conservation-oriented studies (Brumfield et al, 2003;Morin et al, 2004;Seddon et al, 2005;Morin et al, 2009).…”

The Life Cycle of Toxoplasma gondii in the Natural Environment

“…Another determinant factor is the proximity of agricultural activity: in Corsican wild boar, seroprevalence was highest in counties with high farm densities [91]. The presence of domestic cats, including farm cats or feral cats essentially living on predation, and wildcats and hybrid that may live close to rural areas [113], is probably an important factor explaining the connection between the wild and domestic life-cycles of T.…”