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opencc-by-4.0Dec 2014View details →

Fig. 2 in Restricted evaluation of Trichodectes canis (Phthiraptera: Trichodectidae) detection methods in Alaska gray wolves

Fig. 2. Divisions of wolf hide into 100 cm2 subsections for lice density analysis utilizing potassium hydroxide digestion. Each hide subsection square represents 10 cm by 10 cm, one representative section from each region was examined: 1 from the neck; 2 from the shoulder; 3 from the groin; 4 from the rump.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2014View details →

Fig. 1 in Restricted evaluation of Trichodectes canis (Phthiraptera: Trichodectidae) detection methods in Alaska gray wolves

Fig. 1. Divisions of wolf half hides designated for lice proportion analysis utilizing potassium hydroxide digestion. Wolf hides were cut in half and the right and left subdivided into four relatively equal sections and numbered sequentially from the neck to the tail base.

Fig. 4 in Gray wolves as sentinels for the presence of Echinococcus spp. and other gastrointestinal parasites in France

Fig. 4. Histogram of the total number of fecal samples analyzed for each French wolf pack with a minimum of 12 fecal samples available, with indication of the detection of cestodes (red), nematodes (orange) or absence of parasites (green).

Fig. 2 in Gray wolves as sentinels for the presence of Echinococcus spp. and other gastrointestinal parasites in France

Fig. 2. Spatial distribution of the 911 fecal samples collected from wolves (gray circle) in southeastern France submitted to copro-DNA analyses for identification of gastrointestinal parasites. The size of the circles is proportional to the number of samples collected per municipality. The departments (corresponding to NUTS3 level) are indicated by black lines.

Fig. 3 in Gray wolves as sentinels for the presence of Echinococcus spp. and other gastrointestinal parasites in France

Fig. 3. Location of the French wolf fecal samples positive for Echinococcus granulosus sensu stricto (green circles) and Echinococcus multilocularis (red circles). The E. multilocularis-positive fecal samples of dogs (red triangles) and wolves (small red diamonds) from Imperia (Italy) taken from Massolo et al., (2018) are also shown.

opencc-zeroOct 2019View details →

Data from: Tooth fracture frequency in gray wolves reflects prey availability

Exceptionally high rates of tooth fracture in large Pleistocene carnivorans imply intensified interspecific competition, given that tooth fracture rises with increased bone consumption, a behavior that likely occurs when prey are difficult to acquire. To assess the link between prey availability and dental attrition, we documented dental fracture rates over decades among three well-studied populations of extant gray wolves that differed in prey:predator ratio and levels of carcass utilization. When prey:predator ratios declined, kills were more fully consumed, and rates of tooth fracture more than doubled. This supports tooth fracture frequency as a relative measure of the difficulty of acquiring prey, and reveals a rapid response to diminished food levels in large carnivores despite risks of infection and reduced fitness due to dental injuries. More broadly, large carnivore tooth fracture frequency likely reflects energetic stress, an aspect of predator success that is challenging to quantify in wild populations.

opencc-zeroMay 2024View details →

Data from: Behavioral trade-offs and multitasking by elk in relation to predation risk from Mexican gray wolves

Non-consumptive effects of predation can alter foraging time, stress levels, and habitat use by prey, potentially resulting in reduced fitness. However, prey can mitigate the non-consumptive effects of predation by increasing vigilance, chewing and vigilance synchronization (i.e., multitasking), and spatiotemporal avoidance of predators. We quantified the effects of the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) predation risk on elk (Cervus canadensis) behavior in the southwestern United States. We conducted behavioral observations on adult female elk and developed predation risk indices using Mexican wolf GPS collar data, locations of elk killed by Mexican wolves, and landscape covariates. We compared a priori models to determine the best predictors of adult female behavior and multitasking, separately. Metrics that quantified both spatial and temporal predation risk were top predictors in both datasets. Adult female vigilance was positively associated with increased predation risk. Increased predation risk had little effect on the probability of foraging, but resulted in decreased time spent resting. In a post hoc analysis, the effect of predation risk on foraging and resting differed across diurnal periods. During midday when wolf activity was relatively low, the probability of foraging increased while resting decreased, in areas with high spatial predation risk. During crepuscular periods when elk and wolves were most active, increased predation risk was associated with increased vigilance and slight decreases in foraging. Our results suggest elk are temporally avoiding predation risk from Mexican wolves by trading resting for foraging, a trade-off often not evaluated in behavioral studies. The probability of multitasking increased with predation risk, suggesting that adult female elk may be offsetting the non-consumptive effects of risk on feeding time. These results highlight potentially important but often excluded behaviors and trade-offs prey species may use to reduce the indirect effects of predation and contribute additional context to our understanding of predator-prey dynamics.

opencc-zeroJun 2024View details →

Data from: Helper plasticity in response to breeder turnover in gray wolves

Nonbreeding helpers can greatly improve the survival of young and reproductive fitness of breeders in many cooperatively breeding species. Breeder turnover, in turn, can have profound effects on dispersal decisions made by helpers. Despite its importance in explaining group size and predicting population demography of cooperative breeders, our current understanding of how individual traits influence animal behavior after disruptions to social structure is incomplete particularly for terrestrial mammals. We used 12 years of genetic sampling and group pedigrees of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in Idaho, USA, to ask questions about how breeder turnover affected the apparent decisions by mature helpers (>2-year-old) to stay or leave a group over a one-year time interval. We found that helpers showed plasticity in their responses to breeder turnover. Most notably, helpers varied by sex and appeared to base dispersal decisions on the sex of the breeder that was lost as well. Male and female helpers stayed in a group slightly more often when there was breeder turnover of the same sex, although males that stayed were often recent adoptees in the group. Males, however, appeared to remain in a group less often when there was breeding female turnover likely because such vacancies were typically filled by related females from the males' natal group (i.e., inbreeding avoidance). We show that helpers exploit instability in the breeding pair to secure future breeding opportunities for themselves. The confluence of breeder turnover, helper sex, and dispersal and breeding strategies merge to influence group composition in gray wolves.

opencc-zeroJun 2024View details →

Data from: Harvest of transboundary gray wolves from Yellowstone National Park is largely additive

Large carnivores are globally threatened due to habitat fragmentation and loss, prey depletion, and human exploitation. Human exploitation includes both legal and illegal hunting and trapping. Protected areas can create refugia from hunting and trapping, however, hunting can still threaten wide-ranging large carnivores when they leave these areas. Large carnivore reintroductions to protected areas are often motivated to restore ecological processes, including wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Determining if harvest is compensatory or additive is essential for informed conservation strategies, as it influences the overall impact on wolf populations and their ecosystems. If the harvest was compensatory, then increasing harvest pressure outside YNP should not decrease overall survival for transboundary wolves. Alternatively, if increasing harvest was additive, then increasing harvest pressure outside YNP should decrease overall survival for transboundary wolves. We tested the effects of variable harvest pressure following delisting on the survival of YNP gray wolves (Canis lupus) from 1995 to 2022. We defined three harvest levels: no harvest, harvest with limited quotas, and unlimited harvest. We used Cox-proportional hazards models and cumulative incidence functions to estimate survival rates, factors affecting survival, and cause-specific mortality between these three harvest periods to test predictions of the additive mortality hypothesis. Most wolves that primarily lived in YNP were harvested adjacent to the park border. Cox-proportional hazards models revealed that mortality was highest during years of unlimited harvest during winter outside YNP. Cause-specific mortality analyses showed that natural mortality from other wolves and harvest were the two leading causes of death, but that harvest mortality had additive effects on wolf mortality. Wolf survival decreased with increased harvest mortality, while natural mortality remained relatively unchanged. High rates of additive harvest mortality of wolves could negatively impact wolf survival in YNP. Harvest mortality of transboundary wolves is additive possibly due to source-sink dynamics of uneven spatial susceptibility of wolves to harvest mortality across protected area borders, as well as effects of harvest on complex social dynamics of wolves in YNP. Transboundary management of large carnivores is challenging, yet cooperation between agencies is vital for wolf management in and around Yellowstone National Park. Our results support the use of small quota zones surrounding protected areas, that minimize transboundary mortality impacts on large carnivores living primarily inside protected areas.

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Fig. 1 in Gray wolves as sentinels for the presence of Echinococcus spp. and other gastrointestinal parasites in France

Fig. 1. Distribution of wolf fecal samples analyzed according to season and year.

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →

Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves

Recent advances in genomics and palaeontology have begun to unravel the complex evolutionary history of the gray wolf, Canis lupus. Still, much of their phenotypic variation across time and space remains to be documented. We examined the limb morphology of the fossil and modern North American gray wolves from the late Quaternary (< ca.70 ka) to better understand their postcranial diversity through time. We found that the late-Pleistocene gray wolves were characterised by short-leggedness on both sides of the Cordilleran-Laurentide ice sheets, and that this trait survived well into the Holocene despite the collapse of Pleistocene megafauna and disappearance of the "Beringian wolf" from Alaska. In contrast, extant populations in the Midwestern United States and north-western North America are distinguished by their elongate limbs with long distal segments, which appear to have evolved during the Holocene possibly in response to a new level or type of prey depletion. One of the consequences of recent extirpation of the Plains (C. l. nubilus) and Mexican wolves (C. l. baileyi) from much of the United States is an unprecedented loss of postcranial diversity through removal of short-legged forms. Conservation of these wolves is thus critical to restoration of the ecophenotypic diversity and evolutionary potential of gray wolves in North America.