http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Biologist+
describes+wolf+research+Ottawa+Monday/9421989/story.html
Biologist describes wolf research
in Ottawa Monday
BY TOM SPEARS, OTTAWA CITIZEN JANUARY 23, 2014
The Eastern wolf.
OTTAWA — There will
be a public presentation
on the Eastern wolf, the
type of wolf native to this
region, in Ottawa on
Monday.
be a public presentation
on the Eastern wolf, the
type of wolf native to this
region, in Ottawa on
Monday.
Biologist Linda Rutledge
of Trent University will
give the presentation at
7 p.m. at Mac Hall in the
Bronson Centre (211
Bronson Ave.)
Admission is free but the organizers will ask for
donations.
of Trent University will
give the presentation at
7 p.m. at Mac Hall in the
Bronson Centre (211
Bronson Ave.)
Admission is free but the organizers will ask for
donations.
Rutledge is conducting
a survey of whether Eastern wolves have spread from Algonquin
Park to other provincial parks in Eastern and Southern Ontario.
a survey of whether Eastern wolves have spread from Algonquin
Park to other provincial parks in Eastern and Southern Ontario.
She will describe the wolf’s life and habits and tell how genetic
tools are helping to distinguish the different types of wolves,
coyotes, and hybrids.
tools are helping to distinguish the different types of wolves,
coyotes, and hybrids.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hearty Ingredients
of Canis Soup
By The Dog Zombie | December 27, 2011
|
Print
The wolf is iconic and charismatic. We see him on
t-shirts, on posters, and in fantasy novels. Conservationists
do battle with ranchers to preserve populations of wolves.
The coyote, on the other hand, is neither iconic nor loved.
A newcomer to suburbia, he is feared as a suspected
predator of cats, small dogs, and even small children.
He is rarely seen on t-shirts; his name is not used to
designate a rank of Boy Scout.
But now that we have the genetic tools to look at these
animals’ genomes, it turns out that many of the
populations of coyotes in North America are actually
coyote-wolf hybrids, as are many of the populations
of wolves. Unable to draw clear lines between these
species, biologists have dubbed the populations of
hybrids “Canis soup.”
What’s a Canis?
The term “canid soup” has also been used for this
mess of wolf, coyote, and even dog genes that we
find in some populations of canids. So what does
Canis mean, and what is a canid?
These are terms related to the scientific classification
of the species in question. Going through the hierarchy,
we have Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class
Mammalia, Order Carnivora, Family Canidae (canids),
and Genus Canis. Wolves, dogs, jackals, and foxes
belong to the family Canidae, but only wolves, dogs,
and jackals (not foxes) belong to the genus Canis.
We call the wolf-like canids “canines” and the fox-like
canids “vulpines.”
As foxes do not interbreed with wolves, dogs, or
jackals, what we’re talking about here is correctly
Canis soup, or perhaps canine soup, but not canid
soup.
Is it Canis or is it soup?
The more you dig into wild canines in North America,
the more unclear it is where any species lines should
be drawn. So who makes up our cast of characters?
The first ingredient in Canis soup is the charismatic
North American gray wolf or timber wolf, Canis lupus
, sometimes known as Canis lupus lupus to differentiate
it from the dog and the dingo, who belong to subspecies.
The gray wolf is the largest wild canine, at a 79 pound
(36 kg) average weight. (Domestic dogs of some breeds
, of course, weigh more than that.) Its coat coloring can
vary from white through blond, brown, grey, and black
. It is found in the western parts of North America.
Next is the Western coyote, Canis latrans. This
animal is also known as the American jackal
or prairie wolf, suggesting that there has been
some confusion about how to distinguish canine
species for some time. The Western coyote is a
significantly smaller animal than the gray wolf,
weighing in closer to 20 pounds (7-14 kg). Its
coat color is less varied than the gray wolf’s,
almost always a grey-brown as you see in
the image here.
The range of the Eastern wolf or Algonquin wolf, Canis lycaon
, is Ontario, Canada. This wolf is smaller than the gray wolf,
and has a distinctive grey-red coat with black hairs along
its back. We believe that this wolf was the original North
American canine, and that Canis lupus and Canis latrans
immigrated over the land bridge from Europe. There’s a
lot of debate about the species status of C. lycaon, as
many Eastern wolves appear to have significant C.
latrans heritage. Some people suggest that the Eastern
wolf is in fact a C. lupus/C. latrans hybrid, or, alternately,
a subspecies of the gray wolf, C. lupus lycaon.
The Eastern coyote, spreading along the east coast of the
United States, is significantly larger than his Western
counterpart. It turns out to be a coyote/wolf hybrid, and
it has been argued that it should more accurately be
called a coywolf. His wolf ancestors seem to be Canis
lycaon — but then again, there is debate about
whether C. lycaon is really different from C. lupus at all.
The red wolf or Southeastern wolf is subject to truly
intense debate about species status. Is it his own species,
Canis rufus? A subset of the gray wolf, Canis lupus rufus?
Or a population of Eastern wolf, Canis lycaon? It has a
beautiful red coat, and is smaller in size than the gray
wolf. Its range was historically the southeastern U.S.,
but it went extinct in the wild by 1980. A founder
population of 19 animals survived in captivity, and
a reintroduction project in North Carolina was begun
n 1987. Here the red wolf is today enthusiastically
interbreeding with coyotes, leaving conservationists
to wonder what they are conserving.
The three species of wild canines in North America today,
then, are Canis lupus, Canis latrans, and Canis lycaon.
But we really have just two soup ingredients, wolf and
coyote. There are pure wolves (Canis lupus) and there
are pure coyotes (Canis latrans), and there are
populations that are mixtures of more or less wolf
and more or less coyote (Eastern wolves, Eastern
coyotes, and red wolves). There appears to be
some dog mixed in there, too. You can think of
gray wolf and Western coyote as ingredients, and
everything else as soup.
Coyote flavor versus wolf flavor
The 2011 paper “A genome-wide perspective on
the evolutionary history of enigmatic wolf-like canids”
analyzed the various soup flavors out there and
presented their findings in some easy-to-understand
charts (below). Here, the different colors represent
different amounts of each ingredient. The first chart
describes the Eastern wolf, here referred to as the
Algonquin wolf, which is mostly gray wolf (green)
and joint wolf/coyote (yellow), but also has
significant coyote (red). The second chart describes
the red wolf; at a glance, it is obvious that the red wolf
has a much larger percentage of coyote genes
(again, red in this chart). These charts both use
τ to denote the number of generations since the
most recent admixture with another species.
The two coyote recipes pictured below describe two
subpopulations of what I have described as the Eastern
coyote; this particular paper considers them split into
Northeastern and Southeastern coyotes. At a glance,
these populations are mainly pure coyote (red), with
big dashes of mixed coyote/wolf (yellow), and small
but notable amounts of our friend the dog (dark blue,
light blue, and pink).
Wild canine populations challenge us to let go of our
obsessive need to categorize. Instead of slotting a
canine population into a single species category, we
might instead think of it as existing on a spectrum from
“wolf-like” to “coyote-like.” A strongly wolf-like canid
would be larger, sixty to ninety pounds. It would require
a larger range, and would be a deerivore, subsisting off
of larger game. It is likely to be a shyer animal, found only
in more rural or wild areas.
Conversely, a strongly coyote-like canid would be much
smaller, fifteen to thirty pounds, with a smaller range. It
might eat deer as well as rabbits and et cetera (probably
a lot of et cetera, as coyotes are more willing to scrounge
than wolves are). It would be more likely to be found in
suburban areas, with a greater tolerance for human
proximity. A given population of canines might fall
anywhere on the spectrum between the two. The fact
that a spectrum actually exists is beautifully
demonstrated by the Eastern coyote, who has
mixed coyote/wolf ancestry, is mid-sized between
coyote and wolf, and has a mid-sized range.
What’s your preferred flavor?
Does the intermixture of various ingredients in the
formation of soupy populations matter as more than
a gee-whiz story? To some people, the answer is
very much yes. The conservationists who are
committing significant resources to the preservation
of the red wolf don’t want to see the wolves that they
reintroduce interbreed with coyotes. If the reintroduced
wolf population blends into a coyote population, then
are these resources actually being spent just to
support a bunch of coyotes (who have been doing
fine on their own)? At the same time, evidence shows
that the founder population of 19 red wolves was
already significantly coyotified, and we’re not sure
how long it’s been since there have been any pure
Canis rufus specimens in North America.
It is, of course, possible to think about the problem
without asking for genetics to provide the complete
answer for us. The red wolf is a red wolf, a beautiful,
iconic animal that has lived in the southeastern
United States throughout living memory. We know
what the red wolf looks like (and that hasn’t been
changing much, no matter what is happening to his
genes). We also know that it is important in a
particular environmental niche, and that hasn’t
been changing much either.
Practically, the mixture of coyote genes into fragile
wolf populations may be a good thing. Because
coyotes are better at living on smaller ranges
and in closer proximity to humans than wolves are,
they are better adapted to the realities of North
America today. As their genes mix into wolf
populations, these populations become demonstrably
more robust, more able to tolerate human presence,
and able to survive on smaller ranges. It is possible,
in fact, that coyote genes are exactly what are
eventually going to allow a red wolf population to
flourish without human assistance.
Conclusions, if we can make any
Does it matter that some of what we think of as
wolves have coyote genes? I think the answer
comes down to a cultural perception of the wolf
as a romantic and charismatic creature, and of
the coyote as a pest. Perhaps any mixture of the
two is perceived as diminishing the wolf. A friend
of mine once made this analogy: if you have an
entire bottle of fine wine, and you pour just a
teaspoon of sewage into it, now you have a bottle
of sewage. Does any amount of coyote, no matter
how miniscule, make the wolf impure, and less
worth conserving than it was?
As a culture, I hope we can come to appreciate
the strengths that the coyote brings to Canis
soup, in its ability to coexist with humans in the
modern world. It may be what saves populations
of charismatic wolves from permanent loss. As
we look at populations of canines in North America,
we should learn to say that one is more coyote-like
and another more wolf-like, on a spectrum from one
flavor of soup to another, and appreciate the
benefits of both.
Canis soup has been used before as an example
of the blurriness of some species lines and the
inadequacy of many existing definitions of a species
, but it also provides some interesting insights into
the fluidity of canid morphology and behavioral
characteristics. How did something as large and
wild as a wolf become something as variably-sized
and tame as a dog? Moreover, how did this change
happen (presumably) without a carefully planned
breeding program? Why is it so easy to breed types
of dogs with such different behavioral and physical
characteristics, especially compared to the much
more limited variety of breeds of cat, horse, or cow?
The canine genome clearly has the capacity for
expression across a startlingly wide array of
phenotypes. The evidence of this variety has
always been right before our eyes, but we are
just beginning to understand its implications.
References:
·Adams J. R., Leonard J. A., Waits L. P.
Widespread occurrence of a domestic dog
mitochondrial DNA haplotype in southeastern
US coyotes. Molecular Ecology. 2003;12:541-546.
· Adams J. R., Kelly B. T., Waits L. P. Using faeca
l DNA sampling and GIS to monitor hybridization
between red wolves (Canis rufus) and coyotes
(Canis latrans). Molecular Ecology. 2003;12:2175-2186.
· Hailer Frank, Leonard Jennifer A. Hybridization
among three native North American Canis specie
s in a region of natural sympatry. PLoS ONE. 2008;
3:e3333+.
· vonHoldt Bridgett M., Pollinger John P., Earl Dent A.,
et al. A genome-wide perspective on the evolutionary
history of enigmatic wolf-like canids. Genome research.
2011;21:1294-1305.
· Way Jonathan G., Rutledge Linda, Wheeldon Tyler,
White Bradley N. Genetic Characterization of Eastern
”Coyotes” in Eastern Massachusetts. Northeastern Naturalist. 2010;17:189-204.
· Wilson Paul J., Grewal Sonya K., Mallory Frank F.,
White Bradley N. Genetic Characterization of Hybrid
Wolves across Ontario. Journal of Heredity. 2009;
100:S80-S89.
· Zimmer Carl. What Is a Species? Sci Am. 2008;298:
72-79.
Images: Gray Wolf (Image courtesy of vargklo at
Wikipedia and Flickr); Western Coyote (Image courtesy
of Rebecca Richardson at Wikipedia and Flickr);
Eastern wolf (Image courtesy Christian Jansky at
Wikipedia); Eastern coyote/coywolf (Image from
Eastern Coyote Research); Red wolf (image from
True Wild Life); Two recipes for wolf flavored
Canis soup (vonHoldt, 2011); Two recipes for
coyote flavored Canis soup (vonHoldt, 2011)
t-shirts, on posters, and in fantasy novels. Conservationists
do battle with ranchers to preserve populations of wolves.
The coyote, on the other hand, is neither iconic nor loved.
A newcomer to suburbia, he is feared as a suspected
predator of cats, small dogs, and even small children.
He is rarely seen on t-shirts; his name is not used to
designate a rank of Boy Scout.
But now that we have the genetic tools to look at these
animals’ genomes, it turns out that many of the
populations of coyotes in North America are actually
coyote-wolf hybrids, as are many of the populations
of wolves. Unable to draw clear lines between these
species, biologists have dubbed the populations of
hybrids “Canis soup.”
What’s a Canis?
The term “canid soup” has also been used for this
mess of wolf, coyote, and even dog genes that we
find in some populations of canids. So what does
Canis mean, and what is a canid?
These are terms related to the scientific classification
of the species in question. Going through the hierarchy,
we have Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class
Mammalia, Order Carnivora, Family Canidae (canids),
and Genus Canis. Wolves, dogs, jackals, and foxes
belong to the family Canidae, but only wolves, dogs,
and jackals (not foxes) belong to the genus Canis.
We call the wolf-like canids “canines” and the fox-like
canids “vulpines.”
As foxes do not interbreed with wolves, dogs, or
jackals, what we’re talking about here is correctly
Canis soup, or perhaps canine soup, but not canid
soup.
Is it Canis or is it soup?
The more you dig into wild canines in North America,
the more unclear it is where any species lines should
be drawn. So who makes up our cast of characters?
The first ingredient in Canis soup is the charismaticNorth American gray wolf or timber wolf, Canis lupus
, sometimes known as Canis lupus lupus to differentiate
it from the dog and the dingo, who belong to subspecies.
The gray wolf is the largest wild canine, at a 79 pound
(36 kg) average weight. (Domestic dogs of some breeds
, of course, weigh more than that.) Its coat coloring can
vary from white through blond, brown, grey, and black
. It is found in the western parts of North America.
Next is the Western coyote, Canis latrans. Thisanimal is also known as the American jackal
or prairie wolf, suggesting that there has been
some confusion about how to distinguish canine
species for some time. The Western coyote is a
significantly smaller animal than the gray wolf,
weighing in closer to 20 pounds (7-14 kg). Its
coat color is less varied than the gray wolf’s,
almost always a grey-brown as you see in
the image here.
The range of the Eastern wolf or Algonquin wolf, Canis lycaon, is Ontario, Canada. This wolf is smaller than the gray wolf,
and has a distinctive grey-red coat with black hairs along
its back. We believe that this wolf was the original North
American canine, and that Canis lupus and Canis latrans
immigrated over the land bridge from Europe. There’s a
lot of debate about the species status of C. lycaon, as
many Eastern wolves appear to have significant C.
latrans heritage. Some people suggest that the Eastern
wolf is in fact a C. lupus/C. latrans hybrid, or, alternately,
a subspecies of the gray wolf, C. lupus lycaon.
The Eastern coyote, spreading along the east coast of theUnited States, is significantly larger than his Western
counterpart. It turns out to be a coyote/wolf hybrid, and
it has been argued that it should more accurately be
called a coywolf. His wolf ancestors seem to be Canis
lycaon — but then again, there is debate about
whether C. lycaon is really different from C. lupus at all.
The red wolf or Southeastern wolf is subject to trulyintense debate about species status. Is it his own species,
Canis rufus? A subset of the gray wolf, Canis lupus rufus?
Or a population of Eastern wolf, Canis lycaon? It has a
beautiful red coat, and is smaller in size than the gray
wolf. Its range was historically the southeastern U.S.,
but it went extinct in the wild by 1980. A founder
population of 19 animals survived in captivity, and
a reintroduction project in North Carolina was begun
n 1987. Here the red wolf is today enthusiastically
interbreeding with coyotes, leaving conservationists
to wonder what they are conserving.
The three species of wild canines in North America today,
then, are Canis lupus, Canis latrans, and Canis lycaon.
But we really have just two soup ingredients, wolf and
coyote. There are pure wolves (Canis lupus) and there
are pure coyotes (Canis latrans), and there are
populations that are mixtures of more or less wolf
and more or less coyote (Eastern wolves, Eastern
coyotes, and red wolves). There appears to be
some dog mixed in there, too. You can think of
gray wolf and Western coyote as ingredients, and
everything else as soup.
Coyote flavor versus wolf flavor
The 2011 paper “A genome-wide perspective on
the evolutionary history of enigmatic wolf-like canids”
analyzed the various soup flavors out there and
presented their findings in some easy-to-understand
charts (below). Here, the different colors represent
different amounts of each ingredient. The first chart
describes the Eastern wolf, here referred to as the
Algonquin wolf, which is mostly gray wolf (green)
and joint wolf/coyote (yellow), but also has
significant coyote (red). The second chart describes
the red wolf; at a glance, it is obvious that the red wolf
has a much larger percentage of coyote genes
(again, red in this chart). These charts both use
τ to denote the number of generations since the
most recent admixture with another species.
The two coyote recipes pictured below describe two
subpopulations of what I have described as the Eastern
coyote; this particular paper considers them split into
Northeastern and Southeastern coyotes. At a glance,
these populations are mainly pure coyote (red), with
big dashes of mixed coyote/wolf (yellow), and small
but notable amounts of our friend the dog (dark blue,
light blue, and pink).
Wild canine populations challenge us to let go of our
obsessive need to categorize. Instead of slotting a
canine population into a single species category, we
might instead think of it as existing on a spectrum from
“wolf-like” to “coyote-like.” A strongly wolf-like canid
would be larger, sixty to ninety pounds. It would require
a larger range, and would be a deerivore, subsisting off
of larger game. It is likely to be a shyer animal, found only
in more rural or wild areas.
Conversely, a strongly coyote-like canid would be much
smaller, fifteen to thirty pounds, with a smaller range. It
might eat deer as well as rabbits and et cetera (probably
a lot of et cetera, as coyotes are more willing to scrounge
than wolves are). It would be more likely to be found in
suburban areas, with a greater tolerance for human
proximity. A given population of canines might fall
anywhere on the spectrum between the two. The fact
that a spectrum actually exists is beautifully
demonstrated by the Eastern coyote, who has
mixed coyote/wolf ancestry, is mid-sized between
coyote and wolf, and has a mid-sized range.
What’s your preferred flavor?
Does the intermixture of various ingredients in the
formation of soupy populations matter as more than
a gee-whiz story? To some people, the answer is
very much yes. The conservationists who are
committing significant resources to the preservation
of the red wolf don’t want to see the wolves that they
reintroduce interbreed with coyotes. If the reintroduced
wolf population blends into a coyote population, then
are these resources actually being spent just to
support a bunch of coyotes (who have been doing
fine on their own)? At the same time, evidence shows
that the founder population of 19 red wolves was
already significantly coyotified, and we’re not sure
how long it’s been since there have been any pure
Canis rufus specimens in North America.
It is, of course, possible to think about the problem
without asking for genetics to provide the complete
answer for us. The red wolf is a red wolf, a beautiful,
iconic animal that has lived in the southeastern
United States throughout living memory. We know
what the red wolf looks like (and that hasn’t been
changing much, no matter what is happening to his
genes). We also know that it is important in a
particular environmental niche, and that hasn’t
been changing much either.
Practically, the mixture of coyote genes into fragile
wolf populations may be a good thing. Because
coyotes are better at living on smaller ranges
and in closer proximity to humans than wolves are,
they are better adapted to the realities of North
America today. As their genes mix into wolf
populations, these populations become demonstrably
more robust, more able to tolerate human presence,
and able to survive on smaller ranges. It is possible,
in fact, that coyote genes are exactly what are
eventually going to allow a red wolf population to
flourish without human assistance.
Conclusions, if we can make any
Does it matter that some of what we think of as
wolves have coyote genes? I think the answer
comes down to a cultural perception of the wolf
as a romantic and charismatic creature, and of
the coyote as a pest. Perhaps any mixture of the
two is perceived as diminishing the wolf. A friend
of mine once made this analogy: if you have an
entire bottle of fine wine, and you pour just a
teaspoon of sewage into it, now you have a bottle
of sewage. Does any amount of coyote, no matter
how miniscule, make the wolf impure, and less
worth conserving than it was?
As a culture, I hope we can come to appreciate
the strengths that the coyote brings to Canis
soup, in its ability to coexist with humans in the
modern world. It may be what saves populations
of charismatic wolves from permanent loss. As
we look at populations of canines in North America,
we should learn to say that one is more coyote-like
and another more wolf-like, on a spectrum from one
flavor of soup to another, and appreciate the
benefits of both.
Canis soup has been used before as an example
of the blurriness of some species lines and the
inadequacy of many existing definitions of a species
, but it also provides some interesting insights into
the fluidity of canid morphology and behavioral
characteristics. How did something as large and
wild as a wolf become something as variably-sized
and tame as a dog? Moreover, how did this change
happen (presumably) without a carefully planned
breeding program? Why is it so easy to breed types
of dogs with such different behavioral and physical
characteristics, especially compared to the much
more limited variety of breeds of cat, horse, or cow?
The canine genome clearly has the capacity for
expression across a startlingly wide array of
phenotypes. The evidence of this variety has
always been right before our eyes, but we are
just beginning to understand its implications.
References:
·Adams J. R., Leonard J. A., Waits L. P.
Widespread occurrence of a domestic dog
mitochondrial DNA haplotype in southeastern
US coyotes. Molecular Ecology. 2003;12:541-546.
· Adams J. R., Kelly B. T., Waits L. P. Using faeca
l DNA sampling and GIS to monitor hybridization
between red wolves (Canis rufus) and coyotes
(Canis latrans). Molecular Ecology. 2003;12:2175-2186.
· Hailer Frank, Leonard Jennifer A. Hybridization
among three native North American Canis specie
s in a region of natural sympatry. PLoS ONE. 2008;
3:e3333+.
· vonHoldt Bridgett M., Pollinger John P., Earl Dent A.,
et al. A genome-wide perspective on the evolutionary
history of enigmatic wolf-like canids. Genome research.
2011;21:1294-1305.
· Way Jonathan G., Rutledge Linda, Wheeldon Tyler,
White Bradley N. Genetic Characterization of Eastern
”Coyotes” in Eastern Massachusetts. Northeastern Naturalist. 2010;17:189-204.
· Wilson Paul J., Grewal Sonya K., Mallory Frank F.,
White Bradley N. Genetic Characterization of Hybrid
Wolves across Ontario. Journal of Heredity. 2009;
100:S80-S89.
· Zimmer Carl. What Is a Species? Sci Am. 2008;298:
72-79.
Images: Gray Wolf (Image courtesy of vargklo at
Wikipedia and Flickr); Western Coyote (Image courtesy
of Rebecca Richardson at Wikipedia and Flickr);
Eastern wolf (Image courtesy Christian Jansky at
Wikipedia); Eastern coyote/coywolf (Image from
Eastern Coyote Research); Red wolf (image from
True Wild Life); Two recipes for wolf flavored
Canis soup (vonHoldt, 2011); Two recipes for
coyote flavored Canis soup (vonHoldt, 2011)
About the Author: The Dog Zombiestudies dog brains by pursuing DVM (veterinary medicine)
and MS degrees. She is currently in her fourth year of the
DVM degree, having completed her research year.
Her interests include neurobiology, neuroendocrinology,
ethology, animal behavior, canid domestication, shelter
medicine, animal welfare, veterinary ethics, open access
publishing, and the philosophy of science.
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