Wild animals are under threat worldwide, from loss of habitat, introduced predators, climate change and human settlement. It looks like it’s not just scientists, though, who are working to protect these populations. The laws of genetics and selection are at work in the animals themselves, helping them to adapt and even thrive in a changing world.
A recent study of wild junglefowl has shown these principles in action. Scientists believe that a series of hurricanes in Hawaii in the 80’s and 90’s blew domestic chickens into the Kauai forests. There, they interbred with wild populations and as a result, these ‘wild’ jungle-dwellers now carry a lot more domestic chicken genes than anyone expected.
The genomes of the wild birds now include their unique junglefowl genes, plus genes from ancient Polynesian chickens, European poultry and more recent Pacific domestic strains. And what's more, the appearance and behaviour of the wild chickens are showing traits from all these ancestors.
Some see this as ‘pollution’ of the wild junglefowl genome. But for others, it's just the natural forces of selection and adaption keeping a species alive. After all, as the article (published in ‘Nature’) puts it: What better way to adapt to human-moulded environments than to borrow traits from human-moulded creatures?
