Winter coat color in hares

Using whole-genome sequencing and genotyping, researchers found that the pigmentation gene Agouti, which is associated with winter coat color variation in snowshoe hares, is also responsible for the coats of mountain hares changing from brown during summer to gray or white during winter; further, the winter gray variant introgressed into the mountain hare through hybridization with a non-color-changing species of hare, suggesting that introgression is key to variations of winter coat colors, according to the authors.

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Article #19-10471: “Introgression drives repeated evolution of winter coat color polymorphism in hares,” by Iwona Giska et al.

MEDIA CONTACT: José Melo-Ferreira, CIBIO-InBIO, University of Porto, PORTUGAL; tel: 00351 914209216; email:

[email protected]

This part of information is sourced from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/potn-wcc110619.php

José Melo-Ferreira
003-519-142-09216
[email protected]

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