![]() ![]() “We managed to trace the ancestry of Australia’s invasive population right back to the South-West of England, where Austin’s family collected the rabbits in 1859,” explains Lead author, Dr Joel Alves, currently a researcher at the University of Oxford and CIBIO Institute. However, they did not sample ancestral European and domestic populations, which was crucial to disentangle the source of Australia’s rabbits. Recent studies disputed the single-origin hypothesis, instead arguing that invasive rabbits arose from several independent introductions. whether there was a genetic explanation for their success compared to that of other imported rabbit populations.whether the invasion arose from a single or multiple introductions.where Australia’s invasive rabbits originated from.The researchers studied historical records alongside new genetic data collected from 187 ‘European rabbits’ – mostly wild-caught across Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Britain and France between 18 – to establish: Within three years, ‘Austin rabbits’ had multiplied into thousands, according to a local newspaper report and Austin himself. On Christmas Day, 24 rabbits arrived in Melbourne and were dispatched to Barwon Park. ![]() On 6th October 1859, Austin’s brother, William, sent a consignment of wild rabbits – caught on the family’s land in Baltonsborough in Somerset – together with some domestic rabbits, on the ship Lightning. In a study published in PNAS, an international team led by the University of Cambridge and CIBIO Institute in Portugal finally provides genetic proof for this version of events and settles a debate about whether the invasion arose from a single or several independent introductions. Historians and the Australian public have long assumed that the country’s ‘rabbit plague’ began at Barwon Park, the estate of Thomas Austin, near Geelong in Victoria. So what changed after 1859 and how did the invasion begin? At least 90 subsequent importations would be made before 1859 but none of these populations became invasive.īut within 50 years, at a rate of 100 km per year, rabbits would spread across the entire continent, making this the fastest colonisation rate for an introduced mammal ever recorded. Rabbits were first introduced to mainland Australia when five domestic animals were brought to Sydney on the First Fleet in 1788. ![]() The Romans dispersed the species and this spread accelerated in the Middle Ages. For most of its existence, the European rabbit was restricted to the Iberian Peninsula and the South of France. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |