Origin and status of the Great Lakes wolf |
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| Authors: | STEPHAN KOBLMÜ LLER§ ,MARIA NORD§ ,ROBERT K. WAYNE&dagger , JENNIFER A. LEONARD&Dagger ¶ |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18d, SE-75236 Uppsala, Sweden,;Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA,;Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, National Zoological Park and National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA,;Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, Avd. Americo Vespuccio s/n, 41092 Seville, Spain |
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| Abstract: | An extensive debate concerning the origin and taxonomic status of wolf-like canids in the North American Great Lakes region and the consequences for conservation politics regarding these enigmatic predators is ongoing. Using maternally, paternally and biparentally inherited molecular markers, we demonstrate that the Great Lakes wolves are a unique population or ecotype of gray wolves. Furthermore, we show that the Great Lakes wolves experienced high degrees of ancient and recent introgression of coyote and western gray wolf mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplotypes, and that the recent demographic bottleneck caused by persecution and habitat depletion in the early 1900s is not reflected in the genetic data. |
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| Keywords: | aDNA Canis latrans Canis lupus lycaon conservation hybridization introgression Y chromosome |
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