Carlos Driscoll

Position: PRC in Zoology/ NCI Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Thesis title: A molecular genetic phylogeography of the wildcat, Felis silvestris

Using a suite of linked microsatellite loci we will analyze a worldwide collection of wildcats (Felis silvestris) to describe the phylogeographic units composing the F. silvestris meta-population, establish a genetic definition for the wildcat as distinct from the domestic cat, and develop methods useful in assessing individual and population admixture. Defining phylogeographic boundaries will establish evolutionary significant units important to conservation and provide a rational for discriminating domestic cats from wildcats. This study will complement and extend work begun on Scottish wildcats which characterized and correlated behaviour, ecology and morphology. Extending these correlations to include molecular genetics will help expose the underlying environmental and genetic causes of variation.

Recent publications

Macdonald, D.W., Daniels, M., Driscoll, C.A., and Yamaguchi, N. 2004c. Conservation of the Scottish Wildcat. Oxford: WildCRU.

Macdonald, D.W., Daniels, M.J., Driscoll, C.A., Kitchener, A.C. and Yamaguchi, N. 2004b. The Scottish Wildcat: analyses for conservation and an action plan, Oxford: WildCRU

Yamaguchi, N., Driscoll, C.A., Kitchener, A.C., Ward, J.M., Macdonald, D.W. 2004. Craniological differentiation between European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris), African wildcats (F. s. lybica) and Asian wildcats (F. s. ornata): implications for their evolution and conservation. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 83:47-63.

Yamaguchi, N., Kitchener, A.C., Ward, J.M., Driscoll, C.A. and Macdonald, D.W. 2004. Craniological differentiation amongst wild living cats (Felis sylvestris) in Britain and southern Africa; natural variation or the effects of hybridization? Animal Conservation 7:339 -351.

Driscoll, C.A., Menotti-Raymond, M., Nelson, G., Goldstein, D. and O'Brien, S.J. 2002. Genomic microsatellites as evolutionary chronometers: a test in wild cats. Genome Research:413-423.