introgression

"From the perspective of genetic diversity, hybridization poses a potential threat to the wild ancestors because continuous introgression with the domestic relatives may gradually erode the genetic integrity of the wild forms, leading to the dilution of the wild gene pool over time," Kusi said.

“It made sense that introgression from mexicana was important for adaptation to the highlands,” says Maud Tenaillon, a population geneticist who studies maize at CNRS, France’s national research agency, and Paris-Saclay University.

EPA regulators agreed that what the Yale scientists had found — the transfer of DNA from the corporate-created mosquitoes to the wild population, which is called introgression — was a concern.

Rose said Oxitec expected the introgression.

They found DNA segments in the West Africans that could best be explained by ancestral interbreeding with an unknown member of the human family tree that led to what is called genetic “introgression.”