Gray wolves from China’s provinces have various lineages: research
Source: Xinhua| 2019-09-22 16:13:23|Editor: Li Xia

BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) — Chinese researchers have disclosed that gray wolves from the country’s different regions derived from different lineages, according to a recent study paper published in the journal iScience.

Gray wolves, or Canis lupus, are one of many widely distributed terrestrial mammals in Eurasia, North America and North Africa.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) sequenced six specimens from wolf skins around the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Heilongjiang and Jilin.

They found that the gray wolves from the first three provinces derived from a single lineage, distinct from those from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and northern regions.

The results also indicated that the interspecific gene flow in the genus of Canis likely played an important role in its speciation.

The research approach on ancient DNA can be a remarkable reference for animal museums, said the paper.
via Gray wolves from China’s provinces have various lineages: research – Xinhua | English.news.cn

University of Colorado Boulder students may have seen the various volunteers around campus asking their signature question, “Are you a Colorado voter?” These volunteers are working for the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, an organization dedicated to bringing the gray wolf back to the Colorado mountains.

On Thursday, Sept. 19, Montana Sen. Mike Phillips came to the CU campus to speak on the subject.

Phillips is a conservation biologist whose career has focused on species recovery. He is the leader of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project and its sister organization, the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, through which he educates people on the history of gray wolves and garners signatures and donations for the cause.
via Sen. Mike Phillips speaks on restoring gray wolves to Colorado

In the rugged, sometimes violent world of the wolf, it pays to have mom and dad around.

The longer wolf couples are together, the more likely their offspring are to survive into adulthood, according to new research from the University of Idaho.

According to the study, which will be published in the journal Behavioral Ecology, for each year a wolf pair stays together, the odds of their pups surviving into adulthood increased 20%.

Put another way, “they get 20% better at what they do every year,” study author David Ausband said.

The study used nine years of scat data collected by Ausband and others from wolves throughout Idaho.
via Study suggests monogamous wolves make better parents | The Spokesman-Review

Abstract

Carnivore predation on livestock and game species leads to human-carnivore conflict. Thus, understanding the foraging ecology of threatened carnivores is important for conservation planning. We explore the summer diet of the Himalayan wolf, and of sympatric carnivores, based on the analysis of 257 field collected and genetically confirmed scat samples collected across three study areas in the Himalayas of Nepal (Humla, Dolpa, and Kanchenjunga Conservation Area) and two study areas on the Tibetan Plateau of China (Zhaqing and Namsai Township). We compared the prey species consumed to the relative availability of wild and domestic prey species. Himalayan wolves tend to select wild over domestic prey, smaller (e.g., Tibetan gazelle, Procapra picticaudata) over larger sized wild ungulates (e.g. White-lipped deer, Cervus albirostris), and plains-dwelling (Tibetan gazelle) over cliff-dwelling ungulates (naur, Pseudois nayaur). Tibetan gazelle was consistently selected for by the Himalayan wolf and smaller mammals such as Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana), woolly hare (Lepus oiostolus) and pikas (Ochotona spp.) are important supplementary food resources. Himalayan wolves avoided livestock which showed a seasonal high abundance, that exceeded many-fold the abundance of wild prey species during the summer study period. Given this seasonally high livestock abundance, depredation by Himalayan wolves is inevitable and a major conservation concern. Habitat encroachment and depletion of wild prey populations are important drivers of this conflict. But we found that livestock was avoided when wild prey was available, a finding that can direct conservation. We conclude that the protection of Himalayan wolves, and other sympatric carnivores can be enhanced by a) securing healthy wild prey populations (ungulates and small mammals) through setting aside wildlife habitat refuges, and b) more sustainable livestock herding including reduced livestock loads, and improved herding practices and protection.
via Himalayan wolf foraging ecology and the importance of wild prey – ScienceDirect