Hybrid Classification in the Common Chimpanzee

—Wild populations of all four subspecies of the common chimpanzee - Pan troglodytes - are increasingly threatened. In order to combat this, conservation programmes - both ex-situ and in-situ - require our focus. However, the studbooks that guide the captive management of the ex-situ programmes,are in need of improvement, as they are built on assumptions which are not provably accurate. This study analyses 34,203SNPs from a total of 161 chimpanzees, both wild-born geo- referenced individuals, and captive individuals from European zoos and African sanctuaries with unknown subspecies status. Here, two novel methods are introduced that aim to classify captive individuals in terms of their subspecies ancestry. This will allow identification of individuals suited for use in the captive breeding programme. Both methods are extremely accurate when classifying non-admixed individuals from a single subspecies, yet more refinement is needed in order to provide clarity on the ancestral composition of hybrid individuals.