Coat darkness is associated with social dominance and mating behaviour in a mountain sheep hybrid lineage

2008

Natural hybridization can produce novel traits when morphologically different populations hybridize, and can introduce variation in traits that become associated with sexual selection. Evidence from breeding experiments and genetic markers indicate that the great variation in coat darkness and the unique coat patterns found in Stone's sheep Ovis dalli stonei, populations, have resulted from an ancient hybridization event between thinhorn sheep, O. dalli, and bighorn sheep, O. canadensis. Behavioural evidence gathered in 2003 and 2004 in Yukon Territory, Canada, showed that higher dominance rank was correlated with increasing darkness in rams, and comparatively darker rams were seen more oft…