Sample collection
A total of 256 samples (blood, muscle tissue, feathers or eggs) were
collected from the UK, Greece and North Macedonia and used in the
present analysis (Figure 1). Specifically, 61 (five sampling sites) and
56 samples from wild and farmed individuals respectively, were collected
from the UK, 74 (five sampling sites) and 26 samples from wild and
farmed individuals respectively, were collected from Greece and 16
samples from wild individuals (two sampling sites) were provided from
North Macedonia (Table S1_ Appendix). A representative sample set from
European populations previously published by (Liukkonen-Anttila et
al. , 2002) was also provided by the University of Oulu (12
Finnish and five Greek individuals) and they were included in our
analysis. Furthermore, six mixed-ancestry individuals, i.e. offsprings
of mixed pairing between individuals of Western and Eastern origin, were
analysed.