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 w...
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ftdryad:oai:v1.datadryad.org:10255/dryad.165276 2023-05-15T15:50:34+02:00 Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves Tomiya, Susumu Meachen, Julie A. North America Quaternary Pleistocene Holocene 2017-12-05T14:05:19Z http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.165276 https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kj239 unknown doi:10.5061/dryad.kj239/1 doi:10.1098/rsbl.2017.0613 doi:10.5061/dryad.kj239 Tomiya S, Meachen JA (2018) Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves. Biology Letters 14(1): 20170613. http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.165276 postcrania Article 2017 ftdryad https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kj239 https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kj239/1 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0613 2020-01-01T16:01:30Z 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper Canis lupus gray wolf Alaska Dryad Digital Repository (Duke University) |
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Dryad Digital Repository (Duke University) |
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postcrania |
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postcrania Tomiya, Susumu Meachen, Julie A. Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves |
topic_facet |
postcrania |
description |
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. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tomiya, Susumu Meachen, Julie A. |
author_facet |
Tomiya, Susumu Meachen, Julie A. |
author_sort |
Tomiya, Susumu |
title |
Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves |
title_short |
Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves |
title_full |
Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves |
title_fullStr |
Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves |
title_full_unstemmed |
Data from: Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves |
title_sort |
data from: postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of north american gray wolves |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.165276 https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kj239 |
op_coverage |
North America Quaternary Pleistocene Holocene |
genre |
Canis lupus gray wolf Alaska |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus gray wolf Alaska |
op_relation |
doi:10.5061/dryad.kj239/1 doi:10.1098/rsbl.2017.0613 doi:10.5061/dryad.kj239 Tomiya S, Meachen JA (2018) Postcranial diversity and recent ecomorphic impoverishment of North American gray wolves. Biology Letters 14(1): 20170613. http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.165276 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kj239 https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kj239/1 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0613 |
_version_ |
1766385550295564288 |