The Origins of Feral Cats in Australia Tracked Down to Understand Invasive Species

First Posted: Dec 07, 2015 10:00 AM EST
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Where did Australian cats come from? Scientists have taken a closer look at the feral cats in Australia and have found that they are likely descended from those brought by European settlers that populated the surrounding islands.

Feral cats have established invasive populations over large geographic areas of Australia. There has bene much debate about how they arrived in Australia, however. Cats were often transported on sailing vessels as a means of controlling rodents or as pets. Unsurprisingly, one theory suggests that cats arrived in Australia with European explorers in the late 18th century. Another theory, though, suggests that cats accompanied Malaysian trepangers, which are sea cucumber fishers, to Northern Australia around 1650.

In order to find out which was the case, the researchers analyzed mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites, which are short repeating sequences of DNA, from 266 Australian feral cats. This revealed the evolutionary history and dispersal patterns of the cats.

So what did the researchers find? It turns out that the most probable primary source of feral cats in Australia is from cats arriving from Europe in the 19th century. The researchers also found evidence of a secondary introduction from Southeast Asia, though there's no evidence of a stable feral cat population originating solely from Asia, which discounts the theory on Malaysian trepangers.

"The analysis of genetic structure and diversity of Australian feral cat populations answered the question of the time of feral cat introduction to Australia and revealed that remnants of the historically introduced cat genotypes are still discernable on isolated islands," said Katrin Koch, lead author of the new study, in a news release. "These findings have implications for invasive species management, since our study determined a specific time frame for the arrival of cats to Australia, allowing us to link the time of introduction with the decline and extinction of several native species."

The findings are published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

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