3/5/2023 0 Comments Wolf dog hybridMost of these studies, however, are based on opportunistic invasive sampling that limits the understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of hybridization at the population level. Many countries have thus used molecular tools to study and report wolf-dog hybridization events 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. However, wolf-dog hybrids are not confidently identifiable by morphological features alone. Such attention is justified in the current context of wolf population recovery in human-dominated landscapes 10, where encounters between wolves and either free-ranging, feral or pet dogs are expected to be frequent 11, 12, 13. Hybridization between wolves and dogs is paradigmatic among wild-domestic pairs, attracting a growing attention among managers, researchers and conservationists 3, 7, 8, 9. For example, the black coat colour present in North American wolves ( Canis lupus) is the result of a single mutation 4 that emerged through past interbreeding with dogs, and exhibits a molecular signature of positive selection, apparently confering advantage in forested habitats 5, 6. However, positive effects of such introgression events have also been recently suggested. The outcome of this crossbreeding may lead to the introgression of domestic alleles, shaped by artificial selection, into wild populations, with potential negative conservation consequences, such as genetic homogenization, disruption of local adaptation or, ultimately, extinction 1, 2, 3. Hybridization between wild species and their domestic forms is widely perceived as a biodiversity threat. We consider that real-time population level assessments of hybridization provide a new perspective into the debate on wolf conservation, with particular focus on current management guidelines applied in wolf-dog hybridization events. However, there is a clear maintenance of wolf genetic identity, as evidenced by the sharp genetic identification of pure individuals, suggesting the resilience of wolf populations to a small amount of hybridization. Our results show a previously undocumented scenario of multiple and widespread wolf-dog hybridization events at the population level. Three of the hybrids were backcrosses to dog whereas the others were backcrosses to wolf, the latter accounting for a 5.6% rate of introgression into the wolf population. We identified 130 genotypes, including 67 wolves and 7 hybrids. Genetic relatedness was assessed between hybrids and wolves. ![]() Mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA) and 18 ancestry informative markers were used for species and individual identification, and to detect wolf-dog hybrids. 5,000km 2 in the NW Iberian Peninsula to evaluate wolf-dog hybridization at population level in a single breeding/pup-rearing season. We collected 332 wolf-like scats over ca. Understanding the dynamics of wolf-dog hybridization and delineating evidence-based conservation strategies requires information on the spatial extent of wolf-dog hybridization in real-time, which remains largely unknown.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |