A Research Strategy to Examine the Taxonomy of the Red Wolf (2020) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 11-22
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From page 11... ...
Subsequent genetic studies of the managed population indicated that these wolves displayed evidence of significant coyote ancestry. This discovery raised the question of whether extant captive and managed red wolves (also referred to in this report as extant red wolves or extant red wolf populations)
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From page 12... ...
These alleles, called "ghost alleles," could represent genes characteristic of historical red wolves that were lost in the selection of the founders of the breeding colony. If, as these discoveries suggest, these two populations are remnant red wolf populations and harbor genetic information unique to red wolves, then the evolutionary history of the red wolf needs to be re-examined and the taxonomic and conservation status of these populations re-assessed.
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From page 13... ...
Incomplete lineage sorting is a challenge for reconstructing phylogenetic relationships, because a phylogenetic tree based on a shared polymorphism in red wolves and coyotes will differ from a tree based on other genes for which each species has a unique allele. Third, hybridization and introgression of coyote genes into red wolves could reflect historical phenomena associated with the ancestral origin of the red wolf.
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From page 14... ...
It is clear that extant animals identified as red wolves share alleles with coyotes. The questions are how much of the hybridization that produced this sharing of alleles occurred after coyotes expanded eastward and red wolf populations dwindled and how much of the evidence of hybridization reflects the original genomic constitution of animals acknowledged as red wolves.
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From page 15... ...
Second, some of these wolf populations have mixed a subset of their genes. In the case of the red wolf, tracing its evolutionary history is even more difficult.
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From page 16... ...
C The red wolf was not a historically distinct species but was the product of long and widespread hybridization between coyotes and gray wolves in the southeastern United States prior to 1930 and perhaps even before European settlement (Wayne and Jenks, 1991)
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From page 17... ...
. The Opportunities for New Research Advances in technology and statistical methods have created new opportunities to address the taxonomy of the red wolf.
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From page 18... ...
Clarifying all of these relationships is necessary to align red wolf taxonomy with modern evolutionary biology. To clarify those relationships, new research should employ three types of data: ancient DNA, genomic data from the unidentified canids and the extant red wolf populations, and morphological data from ancient specimens and extant animals.
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From page 19... ...
An affirmative answer will imply that, despite hybridization with coyotes, the GCC populations have retained some of the genetic diversity of the red wolves. If this is the case, it implies that the canids found along the Gulf Coast, from which the founders of the captive and managed populations were selected, represent the remainder of the red wolf lineage after a long period of
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From page 20... ...
5. Is the genetic diversity of the extant red wolf populations a subset of the diversity of the Gulf Coast canids?
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From page 21... ...
2019. Substantial red wolf genetic ancestry persists in wild canids of southwestern Louisiana.
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From page 22... ...
2000. DNA profiles of the eastern Canadian wolf and the red wolf provide evidence for a common evolutionary history independent of the gray wolf.
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