Hello Deniz; The problem of how to deal with hybrid populations is a regulatory one in the USA. In the regulations it isn't clear what protection status, if any, hybrid populations have. That compromises conservation efforts. You need to know what the conservation laws say in Turkey.

Identifying the genetic status of the animals in a particular area can be determined by collecting hair at bait stations. In the bait station, access openings that are a tight squeeze and that have some barbed wire around the edge catch hair as the animals come and go. This hair can be collected and used as the source of genetic material for your testing....that's a common method in North America. You probably already know about this technique. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

From a conservation perspective I think that there is a difference among the hybrids between European and African/Near East wild cats - a totally natural issue, and the hybridization of wild cats with feral cats. Eventually I will look at ways to reduce the latter.

In Switzerland we have a wild cat population in the Jura. As far one can tell about 30% of this population is a hybrid with the domestic cat (PCR analysis). Their behaviour is more like the one of the wild cat and their territories encompasses some periurban areas. These cats cannot be tamed and represent a subspecies of the wild cat. With an increasing population of domestic cats we may also expect an increase in the population of the hybrids. I would consider the hybrids as a subspecies of the wild cat.

@James Des Lauriers thanks for suggestions! My question is more related to how to treat the hybrid populations (i.e. Should they be called wildcat populations or not?) rather than sampling meyhodology.

@Gippoliti Spartaco yes you are right, that would make a difference for European wildcat, domestic cat hybrids. However, as domestic cat is a descendant of African/Near east wildcat, does hybridization with this subspecies still create a big problem? For instance the hybridization between wolves and dogs is a common issue in Bulgaria but they are still treated as wolves. Considering, cat was domesticated in near east (Driscol et al. 2007) and feral populations here are not selectively bred for certain traits (there are only two special breeds in Anatolia: Angora and Van cats and they are very rare), how different are hybrids from their wild ancestors? Probably all Felis lybica populations in Anatolia and Middle East hybridized with domestics continuously since the cat domestication...

@Jean-Pierre Jost I tend to think the similarly as there is no way to remove all the hybrids (probably thousands) and ferals (probably millions with city strays) in Anatolia.

So if we come back to the main question, could we map hybrid populations in nature, as wildcat populations if hybridization is continuous and somehow all wildcat populations in the country is a soup of different types of wilds and hybrids depending on locality?

Hi Deniz. It is important to remember that although hybrids are not genetically pure, they do harbour wild genes/alleles. Thus, they should be managed as an important reservoir of wild alleles, which could be reintroduced into a genetically eroded population by back-crossing.

@John O'Brein thanks for the suggestion John. We will consider that too.

Deniz Mengüllüoğlu "as domestic cat is a descendant of African/Near east wildcat, does hybridization with this subspecies still create a big problem? For instance the hybridization between wolves and dogs is a common issue in Bulgaria but they are still treated as wolves." This is certainly a question of the level of introgression in the wild population. In order to answer this question properly, one needs to know the extent of hybridization between the species. In some cases, hybridization stays very limited and only certain parts of the genome introgress, while the rest stays pretty much "wild". But in some other cases, "intruder's" genome dominates the genome of the wild species. This can reach a point where you cannot call the wild species wild anymore. And of course in nature there are numerous variations in between these two extremes.

I would suggest you to make a rough sampling as a start to have a general idea on the pattern of the introgression between these species. If it turns out that you have a limited contact zone between the ranges of the two species and introgresion occurs only in that zone, than you can map the two species separately. Otherwise, you need to know the level of introgression and thus whether it is at the level that you lost the wild genome entirely or only partly.

I hope this will help.

Best regards

Thank you @Kahraman Ipekdal , as I mentioned the IUCN species assessment is being done this year and a fast sampling, lab and data analysis process beforehand is not so possible. That's why I asked the question that if we could assume hybrid populations as wildcat populations. It seems that we will need to first map them as putative wild populations and then start the genetic studies to dive deep into their real status.

They are the same species according the American Society of Mammalogists. As long as they are living wild, why is this an issue. People are doing all sorts of things to try to prevent hybridization, when it is a natural evolutionary phenomena. This is one of the most foolish issues in conservation biology, and leads to some truly horrific solutions, e.g. the State of California killing hundreds of Barred Owls to protect the integrity of their few dozen Spotted Owls..

We got this issue in French Guiana, with manatees (see Vilaça et al 2019, Santos et al 2019 on my profile). All our specimen are hybrids between the Antillean T. manatus and the Amazonian T. inunguis. The population forms an hybrid zone, under the influence of the Amazon. The Antillean distribution is "cut" by this hybrid zone (ie, from West to East, we have one pop in Florida, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, then the hybrid zone in the Guianas and the Amazon mouth, and the second Antillean population at East of the Amazon)

This has 2 consequences

- since we did not identified gene flows between the 2 antillean pops, they are separated by the hybrid zone, and obviously weakened (very low pop size in Brazil, and no gene flow expected from West

- after very loooong discussion with IUCN, we evaluated the hybrid population as a taxon, published last year in our Regional Red List. Indeed, we have a perticuliar habitats, likely adaptation and advantages resulting from hybridization, an old and complex process, ecology different than "normal" Antillean. So, no reason to consider that this pop should not focus conservation attention and effort

And now we are even discussing about an Action Plan for the hybrids ! Minds are moving forward ...

Regards,

I would introduce a further question related. The consequences depends if hydrid zone is larger (or not) than expected for the null model launched by John Endler in his book published 1977. Am I correct?

Hello folks; Carlos' mention of John Endler's stuff requires me to dredge up one of the first careful analyses of introgression in birds. The citation is...

Short, L 1965. Hybridization of the Flickers of North America. Bull Amer Mus Nat Hist 129(4): 309-428.

You can find it by querying the title on Google Scholar and, as old as it is, it is well worth a read. Pierotti, above, asks exactly the pertinent question. Zones of interbreeding occur often. The mechanisms and persistence of the phenomena are compelling questions about real biological dynamics that we are trying to understand.

Those of us who are involved in conservation issues worry about the status of hybrids, but that worry should be about the regulatory environment, not about the biological environment. This is a lovely conversation! Best; Jim Des Lauriers

In the Jura chain in Switzerland we have about 30% of hybrids between the wild cat and the domestic cat. Their territory is somewhat different from the one of the wild cat and it encompasses periurban forests. This hybrid cannot be tamed and for feeding it can take advantage of the proximity of villages. In the case of shortage of food its chances of survival are bigger than for the 100% wild cat. I would consider the hybrid wild cat as a subspecies of the wild one. Reference: Le chat sauvage, un retour discret à pas feutrés 151pp Jost JP and Jost-Tse YC

Wildcats? Domestic cats? Are we talking about the same. 'Purity' is a human construction. I recommend that you leave the 'purity' for the 'Angora' cats, or the porcelain ones. Let us not endeavor to modify the nature of things.

I agree the the point that Senor Alonso has made. I think that hybridization is a fascinating phenomena, because it suggests that animals classify themselves as evolutionary units in a different way than humans do. As we pointed out in a paper in the1990's ( Pierotti, R. and C.A. Annett. 1993. Hybridization and male parental care in birds. Condor 95:670‑679), animals do not concern themselves with species concepts.

Another issue is the taxonomic and functional category of cat hybrids. These are not a subspecies, because they are the result of reticulate evolution. A subspecies should be a branching event, rather than a convergent one. Also there is the issue of definitions. I attach the following from my 2017 book

The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Co- evolved. Yale University Press:

There are three basic terms, wild, domestic, and tame, used by most investigators when discussing human-nonhuman interactions. A fourth term, socialized, might be more appropriate than tame, which seems to be a catchall term that has lost much real meaning in the contemporary world (Ritvo 2010). A fifth term, feral, is used to describe animals that have gone through the domestication process, but return to living in a wild (or non-tamed) state, e.g. the cat we describe above. One issue is that domestic and tame are often used interchangeably (Crockford 2006), although they have very different meanings. Complicating this issue is that wild is often used as if this concept were the opposite of both domestic and tame, because of the tendency to conflate the latter two terms. What is often misunderstood is that it is perfectly possible for a nonhuman animal to be a domestic form, but to not be tame but instead feral. Equally importantly, it is possible for an animal to be wild (non-domestic in all ways), but to be well socialized to live closely with humans. This is particularly true for the two species of carnivore with which humans have established long-term “domestic” relationships in the present world, Canis lupus and Felis sylvestris, or as we call them, dogs and cats.