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What neighborhood is your rat from?
Combs is a graduate student at Fordham University and, like many young people, he came to New York to follow his dreams. His dreams just happened to be studying urban rats. For the past two years, Combs and his colleagues have been trapping and sequencing the DNA of brown rats in Manhattan, producing the most comprehensive genetic portrait [DOI: 10.1111/mec.14437] yet of the city's most dominant rodent population.
As a whole, Manhattan's rats are genetically most similar to those from Western Europe, especially Great Britain and France. They most likely came on ships in the mid-18th century, when New York was still a British colony. Combs was surprised to find Manhattan's rats so homogenous in origin. New York has been the center of so much trade and immigration, yet the descendants of these Western European rats have held on.
When Combs looked closer, distinct rat subpopulations emerged. Manhattan has two genetically distinguishable groups of rats: the uptown rats and the downtown rats, separated by the geographic barrier that is midtown. It's not that midtown is rat-free—such a notion is inconceivable—but the commercial district lacks the household trash (aka food) and backyards (aka shelter) that rats like. Since rats tend to move only a few blocks in their lifetimes, the uptown rats and downtown rats don't mix much.
The researchers found they could tell what neighborhood rats had come from by analysing their DNA.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:17PM (2 children)
Does the article state what percentage different the two species are from another? Or is this another giraffe or orca? What is the threshhold that determines whether something is a new species? Back from the green site there was an article about orca distribution between species ending up being less different than the races of man. This is not to say man is different species but that it is silly to differentiate them based on different standards. If we want to set the threshhold just outside of mans for convenience of not stepping on toes then thats fine, but then we probably should take another look at orcas and giraffes. Giraffes in particular before they go extinct because now we don't allow cross breeding to maintain genetic diversity.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:28PM (1 child)
You might want to lookup the definition of "species" because in general two different species can't normally breed. There are exceptions, especially with artificial intervention. See Ligor, mule, etc.. Varieties / races can generally reproduce. It is currently thought that all human varieties can interbreed, and certainly no obvious exceptions exist; humans mate and make humans wherever they meet up across history.
The situation you reference with giraffes is typical green nonsense, They go out of their way to declare as many sub-species and varieties as they can so they can then declare that minor variety threatened / endangered. Now they are being hoist upon their own petard as they find themselves barred from "mixing" giraffe to maintain stable and healthy breeding populations.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday December 03 2017, @10:28PM
Thats what I thought as well, but the recent deal with the orcas and giraffes confused me. So what it comes down to is that the same rule that differentiates species still applies, it is just ignored to push various agendas.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam