The work of a Trent University alumna and post-doctoral fellow will shed new light on the debate over wolf conservation in eastern North America.

Dr. Linda Rutledge's paper, RAD sequencing and genomic simulations resolve hybrid origins within North American Canis, published this month in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, summarizes a study which uses more than 127,000 genetic markers, in combination with genomic simulations, to show support for the eastern wolf from Algonquin Provincial Park as a distinct species. 

The work also further clarifies the hybrid ancestry of Eastern North America’s gray wolves and coyotes. Dr. Brad White, a biology professor at Trent who first proposed the Algonquin wolf as a distinct species, is also an author on the paper.

Carnivore conservation is important for maintaining healthy ecosystems, explains Dr. Rutledge. Along with climate change, the disappearance of top predators has been flagged as one of the most significant threats to natural systems. In North America, however, disagreement over the evolutionary origins of eastern wolves presents a significant barrier to carnivore conservation in Canada.

Rutledge's new findings may help to change that.  

“The work is particularly novel because the results represent the highest genomic coverage to date for wild Canis species, and we avoided potential bias in the data because we didn’t rely on the domestic dog genome to quantify the variation. The work supports the eastern wolf as a valid species, and that’s a critical part of assessment by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC),” she explains.

The Royal Society journal Biology Letters publishes short, highly innovative, cutting-edge research articles and opinion pieces across the biological sciences.

To read Dr. Rutledge's paper, visit http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0303

Posted on Tuesday, July 14, 2015.