Genetics of randomly bred cats support the cradle of cat domestication being in the Near East
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Fecha
2022-12
Profesor/a Guía
Facultad/escuela
Idioma
en
Título de la revista
ISSN de la revista
Título del volumen
Editor
Springer Nature
Nombre de Curso
Licencia CC
Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0)
Licencia CC
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es
Resumen
Cat domestication likely initiated as a symbiotic relationship between wildcats (Felis silvestris subspecies) and the peoples of developing agrarian societies in the Fertile Crescent. As humans transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers ~12,000 years ago, bold wildcats likely capitalized on increased prey density (i.e., rodents). Humans benefited from the cats’ predation on these vermin. To refine the site(s) of cat domestication, over 1000 random-bred cats of primarily Eurasian descent were genotyped for single-nucleotide variants and short tandem repeats. The overall cat population structure suggested a single worldwide population with significant isolation by the distance of peripheral subpopulations. The cat population heterozygosity decreased as genetic distance from the proposed cat progenitor’s (F.s. lybica) natural habitat increased. Domestic cat origins are focused in the eastern Mediterranean Basin, spreading to nearby islands, and southernly via the Levantine coast into the Nile Valley. Cat population diversity supports the migration patterns of humans and other symbiotic species. © 2022, The Author(s).
Notas
Indexación: Scopus.
Palabras clave
Animals, Cats, Domestication, Genotype, Humans, Microsatellite Repeats, Middle East
Citación
Heredity, Volume 129, Issue 6, Pages 346 - 355December 2022
DOI
10.1038/s41437-022-00568-4