Population Structure and Phylogenetics v1

The European polecat (Mustela putorius) is a mammalian predator which breeds across much of Europe east to central Asia. In Great Britain, following years of persecution the European polecat has recently undergone a population increase due to legal protection and its range now overlaps that of feral domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius furo). During this range expansion, European polecats hybridised with feral domestic ferrets producing viable offspring. Here we carry out population-level whole genome sequencing on domestic ferrets, British European polecats, and European polecats from the European mainland and find high degrees of genome introgression in British polecats outside their previous stronghold, even in those individuals phenotyped as ‘pure’ polecats.