Risk of interbreeding due to climate change lower than expected

Date:July 6, 2015

Source:University of Washington

One of the questions raised by climate change has been whether it could cause more species of animals to interbreed. Two species of flying squirrel have already produced mixed offspring because of climate change, and there have been reports of a hybrid polar bear and grizzly bear cub (known as a grolar bear, or a pizzly).

"Climate change is causing species' ranges to shift, and that could bring a lot of closely related species into contact," said Meade Krosby, a research scientist in the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group.

She is the lead author of a study published July 6 in Nature Climate Change that tallies the potential number of such pairings. Looking across North and South America, it finds that only about 6 percent of closely related species whose ranges do not currently overlap are likely to come into contact by the end of this century.

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Scientists reveal health benefits of breeding with Neanderthals

Humans rose to dominance across the world after breeding with Neanderthals, according to new research.
Interbreeding between the two species between 65,000 and 90,000 years ago speeded up modern man’s rapid rise to the head of the evolutionary tree, it is claimed.

It was established last year that a small part of the human genome can be traced back to Neanderthals.

But Prof Peter Parham, an expert in immunology at Stanford medical school in California, has now proved how this instilled a “hybrid vigour” in Homo sapiens that allowed them to go on to populate the world.

According to The Sunday Times, crossbreeding provided humans with a ready-mixed cocktail of disease-resistant genes when the species first ventured out of its native Africa.

This, in effect, speeded up man’s global dominance as they did not need to wait for evolution to do the job, it was claimed.

Matt Pope, a senior research fellow in the Department for Archaeologist at University College London, said the latest study presented exciting evidence of man’s relationship with his ancestors.

“If modern humans were getting close enough to share DNA, what else were they sharing?” he told the paper.

“Rather than having to evolve from scratch as they moved out of Africa into Europe and Asia, this interaction would have provided a fast-track to new environments.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8714018/Scientists-reveal-health-benefits-of-breeding-with-Neanderthals.html