Together, they found that some coyote populations in Louisiana and Texas who were protected from hunting still retain huge amounts of red wolf genes-some individuals are almost 60% red wolf.Īs red wolves are released back into the wild, breeding with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity. Samuels: Bridgett vonHoldt, who you just heard, is a collaborator working with Brzeski. Maybe the red wolf dies, because that's what's been happening for red wolves, but all of those genes that it just passed on to its coyote hybrid offspring, now get to circulate and we've rediscovered those.
So a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. But what we also have to remember is when a population is dying out, it might find the best mate is the next closest related species. But why are these called “ghost” alleles?īridgett vonHoldt: So the ghost part is the red wolves are gone, and we presumed they took all of their genes with them. Just like humans, canines inherit one allele from each parent for a certain gene. Samuels: Now, Brzeski and her collaborators have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: ghost alleles in wild coyote populations.Īlleles are the parts of a chromosome that encode specific genetic traits. It was, you know … all wolves were heavily persecuted, but the red wolves were heavily persecuted to the point that only 14 were left. It's been the underdog scientifically it's been the underdog for conservation. Samuels: That’s Kristin Brzeski, an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations.īrzeski: I think, what captures the imagination with the red wolf, and I think this work, is it, it's been the underdog. And now there's a fair amount of inbreeding in the species because you can't help it when you have so few founders. Kristin Brzeski: The species has gone through this huge bottleneck and through that lost a lot of genetic variation.
In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct-the captured wolves were all that was left. To conserve the species, 14 individuals were captured as part of a breeding program. But by 1972 the population was reduced to only roaming a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting. The historic range of these rust-colored canines stretched from Long Island across to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. The red wolf once roamed a huge swath of the eastern United States. Samuels: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Fionna Samuels.
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