Data from: Death by sex in an Australian icon: a continent-wide survey reveals extensive hybridisation between dingoes and domestic dogs

Hybridisation between domesticated animals and their wild counterparts can disrupt adaptive gene combinations, reduce genetic diversity, extinguish wild populations, and change ecosystem function. The dingo is a free-ranging dog that is an iconic apex predator and distributed throughout most of mainland Australia. Dingoes readily hybridise with domestic dogs, and in many Australian jurisdictions distinct management strategies are dictated by hybrid status. Yet, the magnitude and spatial extent of domestic dog-dingo hybridisation is poorly characterised. To address this, we performed a continent-wide analysis of hybridisation throughout Australia based on 24 locus microsatellite DNA genotypes from 3,637 free-ranging dogs. Although 46% of all free-ranging dogs were classified as pure dingoes, all regions exhibited some hybridisation, and the magnitude varied substantially. The south-east of Australia was highly admixed, with 99% of animals being hybrids or feral domestic dogs, whereas only 13% of the animals from remote central Australia were hybrids. Almost all free-ranging dogs had some dingo ancestry, indicating that domestic dogs could have poor survivorship in non-urban Australian environments. Overall, wild pure dingoes remain the dominant predator over most of Australia, but the speed and extent to which hybridisation has occurred in the approximately 220 years since the first introduction of domestic dogs indicates that the process may soon threaten the persistence of pure dingoes.

家养动物与其野生同类的杂交行为，可破坏适应性基因组合、降低遗传多样性、引发野生种群灭绝，并改变生态系统功能。澳洲野犬（dingo）是一种自由活动的犬类，作为标志性的顶级捕食者，其分布范围覆盖澳大利亚大陆绝大多数区域。澳洲野犬极易与家犬发生杂交，澳大利亚诸多管辖区域会依据杂交状态制定差异化的管理策略。然而，家犬与澳洲野犬杂交的规模及空间分布范围仍未得到充分表征。为填补这一研究空白，我们基于3637只自由活动犬只的24位点微卫星DNA（microsatellite DNA）基因型，针对全澳大利亚范围内的杂交情况开展了大陆尺度的分析。尽管46%的自由活动犬只被归类为纯种澳洲野犬，但所有区域均存在一定程度的杂交现象，且杂交规模差异悬殊。澳大利亚东南部混杂程度极高，99%的个体为杂交犬或野生家犬；而偏远的澳大利亚中部地区，仅有13%的个体为杂交犬。几乎所有自由活动犬只均携带一定比例的澳洲野犬血统，这表明家犬在澳大利亚非城市环境中的生存能力较差。总体而言，野生纯种澳洲野犬仍是澳大利亚绝大多数区域的优势捕食者，但自家犬首次引入以来的约220年间，杂交发生的速度与范围表明，该过程或很快威胁到纯种澳洲野犬的存续。