Stable isotope analyses of carbon and nitrogen in hair keratin of suspected man-eating wolves from 1880s.

The so-called man-eating wolves of Turku, a pack of three wolves, reportedly killed 22 children in South-Western Finland in 1880-1881. Enormous efforts were carried out to eradicate them. In January 1882 the last remaining wolf was killed.

Museum specimens of a landlocked pinniped reveal recent loss of genetic diversity and unexpected population connections.

The Saimaa ringed seal () is endemic to Lake Saimaa in Finland. The subspecies is thought to have originated when parts of the ringed seal population of the Baltic region were trapped in lakes emerging due to postglacial bedrock rebound around 9000 years ago. During the 20th century, the population experienced a drastic human-induced bottleneck.

Reliable wolf-dog hybrid detection in Europe using a reduced SNP panel developed for non-invasively collected samples.

Background: Understanding the processes that lead to hybridization of wolves and dogs is of scientific and management importance, particularly over large geographical scales, as wolves can disperse great distances. However, a method to efficiently detect hybrids in routine wolf monitoring is lacking. Microsatellites offer only limited resolution due to the low number of markers showing distinctive allele frequencies between wolves and dogs.

Non-invasive genetic monitoring involving citizen science enables reconstruction of current pack dynamics in a re-establishing wolf population.

Background: Carnivores are re-establishing in many human-populated areas, where their presence is often contentious. Reaching consensus on management decisions is often hampered by a dispute over the size of the local carnivore population. Understanding the reproductive dynamics and individual movements of the carnivores can provide support for management decisions, but individual-level information can be difficult to obtain from elusive, wide-ranging species.

Living on the edge: reconstructing the genetic history of the Finnish wolf population.

Background: Many western European carnivore populations became almost or completely eradicated during the last ~200 years, but are now recovering. Extirpation of wolves started in Finland in the 19th century, and for more than 150 years the population size of wolves has remained small. To investigate historical patterns of genetic variation, we extracted DNA from 114 wolf samples collected in zoological museums over the last ~150 years.