Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit, Veterinary Genetics, Department of Population Health and Reproduction, University of California, Davis, California, USA.
Mol Ecol. 2022 Nov;31(21):5419-5422. doi: 10.1111/mec.16725. Epub 2022 Oct 20.
Before Europeans colonized North America, a uniquely American wolf roamed the eastern forests of southern Canada to Florida and west to the Great Plains. Known today as "red wolf" (Canis rufus) in the south and "eastern wolf" (Canis lycaon) in the north, evidence suggests that these indigenous forest wolves shared a common evolutionary history until only a few centuries ago when they were extirpated from the intervening majority of their historical range. While the eastern wolf persists today primarily as a small population in Algonquin Provincial Park, Canada, the red wolf was ostensibly driven from its last stronghold in gulf-coastal Louisiana and Texas by 1980. The last-known red wolves were taken captive for propagation and reintroduction. Today, the red wolf exists as ~250 descendants of 12 founders and are distributed among 42 captive breeding facilities and one reintroduced population in coastal North Carolina. As red and eastern wolves declined in the 20th century, coyotes expanded from the west into the eastern forests, replacing them. Along with human persecution, coyote hybridization has been blamed for the late 20th century demise of the red wolf. However, rather than helping to drive the red wolf to extinction, coyote hybridization may have instead helped to preserve it. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, vonHoldt and colleagues provide the most comprehensive description yet of the substantial quantity and distribution of red wolf ancestry sequestered in southeastern coyote populations. They find the highest frequency of red wolf genes in coyotes from the gulf-coastal sites where the last known wild red wolves occurred, but also present evidence for a high prevalence of red wolf genes in coyotes throughout the southeastern expansion zone. Given the significant reduction in genetic diversity in extant red wolves owing to their late 20th century population bottleneck, this coyote-sequestered reservoir of red wolf genes could prove an important resource for red wolf conservation.
在欧洲人殖民北美之前，一种独特的美洲狼曾在加拿大南部的东部森林、佛罗里达和西部大平原之间游荡。如今，这种狼在南部被称为“红狼”（Canis rufus），在北部被称为“东部狼”（Canis lycaon）。有证据表明，这些土生土长的森林狼在几百年前就已经灭绝了，当时它们的历史分布范围被从中切断。虽然东部狼今天主要以加拿大阿尔冈昆省立公园的一小部分种群存在，但红狼在 20 世纪 80 年代之前显然已经从路易斯安那州和得克萨斯州的海湾沿海地区的最后一个据点中消失。最后已知的红狼被捕获用于繁殖和再引入。今天，红狼作为 12 个祖先的约 250 个后代存在，分布在北卡罗来纳州沿海的 42 个圈养繁殖设施和一个重新引入的种群中。随着红狼和东部狼在 20 世纪的减少，郊狼从西部扩展到东部森林，取代了它们的位置。除了人类的迫害，郊狼杂交也被归咎于 20 世纪末红狼的灭绝。然而，郊狼杂交并没有帮助将红狼推向灭绝，反而可能有助于保护它。在本期《分子生态学》杂志上，冯霍尔特和他的同事们提供了迄今为止最全面的描述，描述了在东南部郊狼种群中隔离的大量红狼祖先的数量和分布。他们发现，在已知最后一只野生红狼出没的海湾沿海地点的郊狼中，红狼基因的频率最高，但也有证据表明，在东南部扩张区的郊狼中，红狼基因的流行程度很高。考虑到现存红狼由于 20 世纪后期的种群瓶颈而导致遗传多样性显著减少，这种被郊狼隔离的红狼基因库可能成为红狼保护的重要资源。
