A sleepy Madagascar bushpig.Credit: gaelgogo/ iStock / Getty Images Plus
For decades, scientists have debated the critical evolutionary questions about bushpigs, the only large, wild terrestrial mammal species that crossed the 400-kilometre-wide Mozambique Channel from mainland Africa to Madagascar. They have also wondered the red river hogs (Potamochoerus porcus) and eastern and southern African bushpigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) are of the same species.
Published in Nature Communications, the study established that the bushpig was introduced to Madagascar ≈1,000-5,000 years ago from South/South-East Africa with their arrival coinciding with that of humans to Madagascar from a region around southern Africa.
Their findings contradict previous studies that suggested the arrival of bushpigs in Madagascar before humans were present on the island.
Rasmus Heller, the study’s co-author, from the department of biology at Denmark’s University of Copenhagen says, the study “contributes to understanding the protracted nature of speciation, and highlighting that speciation is often “messy” in the sense that diverging species often maintain gene flow after their separation, which counteracts their differentiation.” He adds that the study also contradicts previous suggestions that bushpigs and red river hogs cannot (or do not) interbreed.
The study findings raise new questions on who actually brought the bushpigs to Madagascar as there is lack of archaeological or other evidence of bushpig domestication ever occurring, despite them being an important source of protein for many rural communities. Similarly, whether they were the Bantu-speakers, Austronesian-speakers or both, still remains to be explored.
“This study is a great example of how involving local researchers and wildlife management authorities can lead to more robust and inclusive scientific research”, said Vincent Muwanika, the study’s co-author and associate professor of conservation biology, at Uganda’s Makerere University.
