Intrinsic and environmental drivers of pairwise cohesion in wild Canis social groups.

Animals within social groups respond to costs and benefits of sociality by adjusting the proportion of time they spend in close proximity to other individuals in the group (cohesion). Variation in cohesion between individuals, in turn, shapes important group-level processes such as subgroup formation and fission-fusion dynamics. Although critical to animal sociality, a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing cohesion remains a gap in our knowledge of cooperative behavior in animals.

Relatedness-based mate choice and female philopatry: inbreeding trends of wolf packs in a human-dominated landscape.

Inbreeding can reduce offspring fitness and has substantial implications for the genetic diversity and long-term viability of populations. In social cooperative canids, inbreeding is conditioned by the geographic proximity between opposite-sex kin outside natal groups and the presence of related individuals in neighbouring groups. Consequently, challenges in moving into other regions where the species is present can also affect inbreeding rates.

Diversity, distribution and conservation of land mammals in Mauritania, North-West Africa.

Detailed knowledge about biodiversity distribution is critical for monitoring the biological effects of global change processes. Biodiversity knowledge gaps hamper the monitoring of conservation trends and they are especially evident in the desert biome. Mauritania constitutes a remarkable example on how remoteness and regional insecurity affect current knowledge gaps.

What drives wolf preference towards wild ungulates? Insights from a multi-prey system in the Slovak Carpathians.

The wolf is a generalist-opportunistic predator that displays diverse and remarkably adaptable feeding strategies across its range with local adaptations to certain prey species depending on their availability and vulnerability. The multi-prey system of the Slovak Carpathians supports important portion of the European wolf population; however, it has been markedly understudied. We evaluated winter diet composition and prey selection of Slovak wolves based on 321 scat samples collected between September-April within four different study areas during 2015-2017.

Hair cortisol concentration reflects the life cycle and management of grey wolves across four European populations.

The grey wolf (Canis lupus) persists in a variety of human-dominated landscapes and is subjected to various legal management regimes throughout Europe. Our aim was to assess the effects of intrinsic and methodological determinants on the hair cortisol concentration (HCC) of wolves from four European populations under different legal management. We determined HCC by an enzyme-linked immune assay in 259 hair samples of 133 wolves from the Iberian, Alpine, Dinaric-Balkan, and Scandinavian populations.

Non-Invasive Molecular Survey of Sarcoptic Mange in Wildlife: Diagnostic Performance in Wolf Faecal Samples Evaluated by Multi-Event Capture-Recapture Models.

Sarcoptic mange is globally enzootic, and non-invasive methods with high diagnostic specificity for its surveillance in wildlife are lacking. We describe the molecular detection of in non-invasively collected faecal samples, targeting the 16S rDNA gene. We applied this method to 843 Iberian wolf faecal samples collected in north-western Portugal (2006-2018).

Protein metabolism and physical fitness are physiological determinants of body condition in Southern European carnivores.

The physiological significance of biometric body condition indices (bBCI) is poorly understood. We hypothesized that bBCI are composite metrics of nutritional physiology, physical fitness and health. To test this hypothesis, we first compared the performance of eight bBCI, using 434 Southern European carnivores from six species as a model system; and then identified, by non-destructive methods, the hematology and serum biochemistry correlates of three selected bBCI.

Alternated selection mechanisms maintain adaptive diversity in different demographic scenarios of a large carnivore.

Background: Different population trajectories are expected to impact the signature of neutral and adaptive processes at multiple levels, challenging the assessment of the relative roles of different microevolutionary forces. Here, we integrate adaptive and neutral variability patterns to disentangle how adaptive diversity is driven under different demographic scenarios within the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus) range. We studied the persistent, the expanding and a small, isolated group within the Iberian wolf population, using 3 MHC class II genes (DRB1, DQA1, and DQB1), which diversity was compared with 39 microsatellite loci.

Research trends and geographical distribution of mammalian carnivores in Portugal (SW Europe).

Information regarding species' status at a regional scale is instrumental for effective conservation planning. Some regions of southwestern Europe, such as Portugal, albeit included in the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot, lack a detailed assessment of the distribution patterns of several taxonomic groups, such as carnivores. Moreover, information is scattered, often unreliable and biased towards some species or regions.

Cryptic population structure reveals low dispersal in Iberian wolves.

Highly mobile mammalian carnivores are expected to have the capability to maintain high levels of gene flow across large geographic scales. Nonetheless, surprising levels of genetic structure have been found in many such populations. We combined genetic and spatial behavioural information from wolves (Canis lupus) in the Iberian Peninsula (Western Europe) during the last two decades to present a particular case of low dispersal levels in a large carnivore population persisting in human-dominated landscapes.

Characterization and minimization of the stress response to trapping in free-ranging wolves (Canis lupus): insights from physiology and behavior.

Objectives: Wildlife capture is an essential management tool that induces a reactive homeostasis response in the captured animals. The aim of this study was to characterize the reactive homeostatic response to trapping in free-ranging wolves and assess the mitigation achieved by reducing the duration of restraint.

Materials And Methods: Making use of wolves captured for ecological research as a model for wildlife acute stress, we characterize 25 reactive homeostasis mediators and we assess the effect on these mediators of reducing the duration of restraint in trap by using remote trap activation alarms.

Viral gut metagenomics of sympatric wild and domestic canids, and monitoring of viruses: Insights from an endangered wolf population.

Animal host-microbe interactions are a relevant concern for wildlife conservation, particularly regarding generalist pathogens, where domestic host species can play a role in the transmission of infectious agents, such as viruses, to wild animals. Knowledge on viral circulation in wild host species is still scarce and can be improved by the recent advent of modern molecular approaches. We aimed to characterize the fecal virome and identify viruses of potential conservation relevance of diarrheic free-ranging wolves and sympatric domestic dogs from Central Portugal, where a small and threatened wolf population persists in a highly anthropogenically modified landscape.

Wolf population genetics in Europe: a systematic review, meta-analysis and suggestions for conservation and management.

The grey wolf (Canis lupus) is an iconic large carnivore that has increasingly been recognized as an apex predator with intrinsic value and a keystone species. However, wolves have also long represented a primary source of human-carnivore conflict, which has led to long-term persecution of wolves, resulting in a significant decrease in their numbers, genetic diversity and gene flow between populations. For more effective protection and management of wolf populations in Europe, robust scientific evidence is crucial.

Reassortment among picobirnaviruses found in wolves.

We conducted a viral metagenomics study in diarrheic free-ranging wolves in Portugal, revealing for the first time the presence of reassortant picobirnaviruses. These viruses shared identical capsid segments together with diverse RNA-dependent RNA polymerase segments. Even though causality between these picobirnaviruses and diarrhea could not be established, the study nonetheless confirms for the first time that wolves are a potential reservoir for picobirnaviruses, which might play a role as enteric pathogens.

A New Method for Noninvasive Genetic Sampling of Saliva in Ecological Research.

Noninvasive samples for genetic analyses have become essential to address ecological questions. Popular noninvasive samples such as faeces contain degraded DNA which may compromise genotyping success. Saliva is an excellent alternative DNA source but scarcity of suitable collection methods makes its use anecdotal in field ecological studies.

Genome-wide Evidence Reveals that African and Eurasian Golden Jackals Are Distinct Species.

The golden jackal of Africa (Canis aureus) has long been considered a conspecific of jackals distributed throughout Eurasia, with the nearest source populations in the Middle East. However, two recent reports found that mitochondrial haplotypes of some African golden jackals aligned more closely to gray wolves (Canis lupus), which is surprising given the absence of gray wolves in Africa and the phenotypic divergence between the two species. Moreover, these results imply the existence of a previously unrecognized phylogenetically distinct species despite a long history of taxonomic work on African canids.

Recovery of large carnivores in Europe's modern human-dominated landscapes.

The conservation of large carnivores is a formidable challenge for biodiversity conservation. Using a data set on the past and current status of brown bears (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), gray wolves (Canis lupus), and wolverines (Gulo gulo) in European countries, we show that roughly one-third of mainland Europe hosts at least one large carnivore species, with stable or increasing abundance in most cases in 21st-century records. The reasons for this overall conservation success include protective legislation, supportive public opinion, and a variety of practices making coexistence between large carnivores and people possible.

Molecular assessment of Hepatozoon (Apicomplexa: Adeleorina) infections in wild canids and rodents from north Africa, with implications for transmission dynamics across taxonomic groups.

Parasites play a major role in ecosystems, and understanding of host-parasite interactions is important for predicting parasite transmission dynamics and epidemiology. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about the distribution, diversity, and impact of parasites in wildlife, especially from remote areas. Hepatozoon is a genus of apicomplexan parasites that is transmitted by ingestion of infected arthropod vectors.

Unravelling biodiversity, evolution and threats to conservation in the Sahara-Sahel.

Deserts and arid regions are generally perceived as bare and rather homogeneous areas of low diversity. The Sahara is the largest warm desert in the world and together with the arid Sahel displays high topographical and climatic heterogeneity, and has experienced recent and strong climatic oscillations that have greatly shifted biodiversity distribution and community composition. The large size, remoteness and long-term political instability of the Sahara-Sahel, have limited knowledge on its biodiversity.

Genetic evidence for multiple events of hybridization between wolves and domestic dogs in the Iberian Peninsula.

Hybridization between wild species and their domestic counterparts may represent a major threat to natural populations. However, high genetic similarity between the hybridizing taxa makes the detection of hybrids a difficult task and may hinder attempts to assess the impact of hybridization in conservation biology. In this work, we used a combination of 42 autosomal microsatellites together with Y-chromosome microsatellite-defined haplotypes and mtDNA sequences to investigate the occurrence and dynamics of wolf-dog hybridization in the Iberian Peninsula.