ALBANY, New York - wolves in the East of the United States are hybrids of grey wolves and coyotes, while the coyotes in the area are actually coyote-dog-Wolf hybrids, according to new genetic research to fuel a debate for a long time on the origins of two endangered species.
The study is unlikely that an impact on the management of the red wolf in the process of disappearance in North Carolina and the Wolf in Eastern Canada in Ontario, but it offers fresh overview of their genetic heritage and concludes that these wolves are hybrids that developed on the last few hundred years.
Some scientists have argued that the Red Wolf, Canis rufus and the Eastern Canadian wolf, Canis lycaon, evolved from a distinct ancient Wolf species of the larger gray wolf, Canis lupus, found in Western North America.
Wolf experts who adhere to this theory saying the new study is interesting but is far from proving anything. According to them, that it does not explain why the hybrids appear only in certain places and note that Western wolves to hybridize with coyotes but often them kill.
In the study, published online earlier this month in the journal peer Genome Research, 16 researchers from around the world led by Robert Wayne of the University of California - Los Angeles, the data from the dog genome - entire genetic code of the animal — to probe the genetic diversity in dogs, wolves and coyotes.
He was the more detailed of all species of wild vertebrates to date, using genetic techniques genetic study molecular to look more at 48,000 markers throughout the full genome, said Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum and a co-author.
In a previous study of the dog genome published last year in the journal Nature, an international team led by Wayne of scientists reported that domestic dogs likely originating from the Middle East and share more genetic similarity with Middle Eastern grey wolves than any other Wolf population.
A recent study showed a gradient of hybridization in wolves.
In the West, the wolves were pure wolf, while in the West of the Great Lakes, they average 15 per cent and 85 per cent of coyote wolf. Wolves in Algonquin Park in Eastern Ontario an average 58 percent wolf.
Red wolves in North Carolina, which was the subject of extensive preservation and restoration efforts, has proven to be coyote wolf and 76% of 24 per cent.
Coyotes in the Northeast, which only colonized the region in the past 60 years, were found to be Coyotes 82 percent, dog of 9% and 9% wolf.
In a study co-authored by Kays last year in the journal letters of biology, from museum specimens and DNA samples have been used to show that coyotes migrate eastward crossed with wolves to evolve into a form more wide which became the first predator in the Northeast, a niche left when natives of Eastern wolves have been driven out of existence. Hybridization allowed the coyotes to evolve since the mouse-eaters emaciated condition robust Prairie West deer hunters in the forests of the East.
The genetic techniques used in a recent study has enabled researchers to estimate that the hybridization, in most cases, happened when humans were Eastern wolves hunting to extinction, Kays said.
"The remaining animals some might find that no good partner has meant not the best option, as they could get," said Kays.
L. David Mech, researcher at Northern Prairie Research Center at the U.S. Geological Survey, St. Paul, Minnesota, and founder of the International Centre of Wolf in Ely, Minnesota, is skeptical as to the theory that the wolves Oriental are hybrids.
"How you reconcile it with the fact that grey wolves generally not breed with coyotes, but kill them?" Mech said. "We have no record in the West of wolves to hybridize with the coyotes, even in areas where unique wolves for partners have scattered in coyote country."
Mech also asked if the tested enough study wolves Canadian and North Carolina and whether these specimens were true representatives of these populations.
Although the sounds of genetic markers 48 000 much love, it is actually a small part of all of the genetic code, Mech said. If the evidence of an ancestor single Wolf could be simply in another part of the code that is not analyzed, he said.
Several researchers who consider the Eastern Wolf species separate Grey Wolf recently weighed in a discussion of the new study online.
Brent Patterson, a researcher in Genetics at the Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, called the study "a step important." forward but until more samples are analyzed, the hypothesis that a North American Wolf evolved independently by the Grey Wolf was still viable, said.
"It's an academic question," said Mech. "It is good to know what are the origins of the point of view of curiosity, but from the point of view of conservation, it should not make any difference."
David Rabon, Coordinator of the U.S. Fish and Red Wolf recovery program for the Wildlife Service in North Carolina, said that the Federal Agency has taken the position that the Red Wolf is a unique species that deserves protection. The new study, while interesting, change probably management decisions, he said.
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