Hybridization

Coywolves; hybrid wolf-coyotes in New England?

razib — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:24:28 +0000

Coywolves; hybrid wolf-coyotes in New England?

This article pointed me to this interesting paper, Rapid adaptive evolution of northeastern coyotes via hybridization with wolves:

The dramatic expansion of the geographical range of coyotes over the last 90 years is partly explained by changes to the landscape and local extinctions of wolves, but hybridization may also have facilitated their movement. We present mtDNA sequence data from 686 eastern coyotes and measurements of 196 skulls related to their two-front colonization pattern. We find evidence for hybridization with Great Lakes wolves only along the northern front, which is correlated with larger skull size, increased sexual dimorphism and a five times faster colonization rate than the southern front. Northeastern haplotype diversity is low, suggesting that this population was founded by very few females moving across the Saint Lawrence River. This northern front then spread south and west, eventually coming in contact with an expanding front of non-hybrid coyotes in western New York and Pennsylvania. We suggest that hybridization with wolves in Canada introduced adaptive variation that contributed to larger size, which in turn allowed eastern coyotes to better hunt deer, allowing a more rapid colonization of new areas than coyotes without introgressed wolf genes. Thus, hybridization is a conduit by which genetic variation from an extirpated species has been reintroduced into northeastern USA, enabling northeastern coyotes to occupy a portion of the niche left vacant by wolves.

Here is a figure which shows the distribution of mtDNA lineages geographically:

The gray sections of the bar graph represent coyotes. The non-gray are non-coyotes.

Citation: Roland Kays, Abigail Curtis, and Jeremy J. Kirchman, Rapid adaptive evolution of northeastern coyotes via hybridization with wolves, Biol. Lett. published online before print September 23, 2009, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0575

razib Mon, 11/30/2009 - 07:24

Tags

genetics

Coyote

Hybridization

wolf

I hope they'll do a follow-up on the hybridisation of bankers and wolves.

I live a little ways above the arrow in the last wheel at more or less the indentation in massachusetts there. I was babysitting my sisters kids yesterday morning, at a school playground scarly enough, and one of these wolfotes whatever you want to call them showed up. I apparently said "good god let's get out of here" but don't remember doing so. the woman who told us about it called it a wolf and I called it a coyote so yeah, this article seems spot on

I dunno but I've seen coyotes here in Connecticut that eat a German Sherpard for lunch.

My uncle was federal predator control agent on the Texas-Mexico border. He said that feral domestic dogs were the most difficult to control (kill, and that domestic dog x coyote hybrids were next.

I've never heard of a Great Lakes wolf. I thought there were timber (grey) wolves and Arctic wolves and perhaps red wolves, which seem to be a wolf-coyote variation.

A young woman was killed by two coyotes while hiking in a provincial park in Nova Scotia several weeks ago, which is unusually aggressive behaviour for coyotes. I think I'll start carrying a stout stick on my walks.

What about the Cougars that stalk me all the time *no thanks to my young looking face*

In South Louisiana, we have been having what we call coydogs for about 10 years. From what we have seen and killed, and otherwise observed, they are coyote/wolf/feral dog mixes. I have seen a former den, and collected tan hairs, and have seen a few of them. They are timid towards people, and prefer staying out of sight.

It is true, have evidence in posession. If you look at the skull configutation of a true yote and compare it to that of a wolf, the evidence is clear. A skull collector friend has reference material that clearly defines a species by its bone structure and shows comparisons for similar species so that species is not mis identified. We have skulls from "coyote" shot in Maine. THe lobe area over and behind eye socket is very defined in a wolf and very shallow in a true yote. THese maine coyote skulls have a high defined lobe. I believe, much to the political contrary of Fish and Wildlife, that we have a brand of eastern wolf growing here in Maine. Very territorial and large packs exist here in Somerset county.

Population substructure of Mexican Mestizos

razib — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:01:55 +0000

Population substructure of Mexican Mestizos

Analysis of genomic diversity in Mexican Mestizo populations to develop genomic medicine in Mexico:

Mexico is developing the basis for genomic medicine to improve healthcare of its population. The extensive study of genetic diversity and linkage disequilibrium structure of different populations has made it possible to develop tagging and imputation strategies to comprehensively analyze common genetic variation in association studies of complex diseases. We assessed the benefit of a Mexican haplotype map to improve identification of genes related to common diseases in the Mexican population. We evaluated genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium patterns, and extent of haplotype sharing using genomewide data from Mexican Mestizos from regions with different histories of admixture and particular population dynamics. Ancestry was evaluated by including 1 Mexican Amerindian group and data from the HapMap. Our results provide evidence of genetic differences between Mexican subpopulations that should be considered in the design and analysis of association studies of complex diseases. In addition, these results support the notion that a haplotype map of the Mexican Mestizo population can reduce the number of tag SNPs required to characterize common genetic variation in this population. This is one of the first genomewide genotyping efforts of a recently admixed population in Latin America.

The basic issue here is that "Latino" or "Hispanic" is not a race in a genetic sense. There are Latinos of white, black and Amerindian origin, and every permutation of these three kinds. Population substructure is important for medical reasons because correlations between genetic variants & diseases might actually simply be due to the common relationship of these variants & diseases to a particular population. This is why research which shows how Ashkenazi Jews relate to other American whites is medically important; what might be typical of gentile whites might not be typical of Ashkenazi Jews (who have a history of population specific diseases).

In the case of Latin America the genetic complexity exists for an obvious historical reason: mass die off native populations due to disease and de facto polygyny on the part of Iberian males. Sex mediated gene flow results in the fact that among mixed populations Amerindian ancestry is tends to be found in the maternal lineage. This is almost certainly the case for Mexico. But, there is a variation in terms of the nature of Mestizo culture which likely tracks the ancestral quanta of European and Amerindian. In short, northern Mexico is more Spanish flavored due to both coincidences of climate and the relatively sparse populations of natives. The further south one goes the stronger the signal of native ancestry and impact of native culture. This we knew qualitatively, but studies like this give us a quantitative grasp. Here are the figures which tell the story rather well:

Nothing qualitatively surprising.

1) The balance between European and Amerindian ancestry varies as a function of latitude.

2) The proportion of African ancestry is highest in the very provinces one would expected based on historical records (Afro-Mexicans played a relatively large role in the colonial administration of particular coastal locales because of their robusticity in the face of diseases which took a toll on both Europeans and Amerindians).

3) Note that even in the relatively small sizes you see not too much variance in ancestral proportions in many of these states. That's because of the admixture event is many generations back, and the populations have now had time to mix thoroughly with each other.

4) There is a weakness in comparing to Utah whites and Zapotec Indians as proxies for the ancestral groups, as obviously the white ancestors of the Mestizos were mostly Iberian, not Northwest European. Additionally, some of the data from the Yucatan highlights the reality that the Zapotecs themselves differ from the Amerindian ancestors of Mestizos across regions of Mexico, and so are not perfect proxies.

razib Tue, 05/12/2009 - 03:01