Abstract
Gray wolf populations have been recovering recently across Europe, a fact that poses serious challenges to the management of the species. We investigate the population genetics of wolves at the south-eastern edge of their European range, in Greece, and identify conservation priorities for the species in the country. During population monitoring efforts (1998–2014)48 tissue and hair samples were collected and genotyped at 14 microsatellite loci. Eight samples were discarded from further downstream analysis because of possible dog-wolf admixture. Unlike many other edge populations, wolves in Greece showed high levels of genetic variation (HE = 0.73; HO = 0.66). We detected two genetic clusters of wolves but no genetic bottleneck, which suggests that the human-caused population reduction of wolves in Greece may not have been as severe as previously assumed and that enough wolves may have survived in inaccessible areas and/or neighboring countries to maintain genetic diversity. Two of the main conservation priorities identified for gray wolves in Greece are non-invasive genetic monitoring and ensuring the functional connectivity of the Natura 2000 network through the identification and protection of ecological corridors and road-less areas.
References
Arnaud-Haond, S., Teixeira, S., Massa, S.I., Billot, C, Saenger, P., Coupland, G., Duarte, CM., Serrão, EA, 2006. Genetic structure at range edge: low diversity and high inbreeding in Southeast Asian mangrove (Avicennia marina) populations. Mol. Ecol. 15, 3515–3525.
Balloux, F., Lugon-Moulin, N., 2002. The estimation of population differentiation with microsatellite markers. Mol. Ecol. 11, 155–165.
Belkhir, K., Borsa, P., Chikhi, L, Raufaste, N., Bonhomme, F., 1996–2004. GENETIX 4.05, logiciel sous Windows TM pour la génétique des populations. Laboratoire Génome, Populations, Interactions, CNRS UMR 5000. Université de Montpellier II, Montpellier, France.
Breitenmoser, U., 1998. Large predators in the Alps: the fall and rise of man’s competitors. Biol. Conserv. 83, 279–289.
Chapron, G., et al., 2014. Recovery of large carnivores in Europe’s modern human-dominated landscapes. Science 346, 1517–1519.
Czarnomska, S.D., et al., 2013. Concordant mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA structuring between Polish lowland and Carpathian Mountain wolves. Conserv. Genet. 14, 573–588.
Earl, DA, vonHoldt, B.M., 2012. STRUCTURE HARVESTER: a website and program for visualizing STRUCTURE output and implementing the Evanno method. Conserv. Genet. Res. 4, 359–361.
European Commission, 2011. Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Brussels.
Evanno, G., Regnaut, S., Goudet,J., 2005. Detecting the number of clusters of individuals using the software STRUCTURE: a simulation study. Mol. Ecol. 14, 2611–2620.
Excoffier, L, Lischer, H.E.L., 2010. Arlequin suite ver3.5: a new series of programs to perform population genetics analyses under Linux and Windows. Mol. Ecol. Resour. 10, 564–567.
Excoffier, L., Foll, M., Petit, R.J., 2009. Genetic consequences of range expansions. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 40, 481–501.
Fabbri, E., et al., 2007. From the Apennines to the Alps: colonization genetics of the naturally expanding Italian wolf (Canis lupus) population. Mol. Ecol. 16, 1661–1671.
Frantz, A.C., Cellina, S., Krier, A., Schley, L., Burke, T., 2009. Using spatial Bayesian methods to determine the genetic structure of a continously distributed population: clusters and isolation by distance. J. Appl. Ecol. 46, 493–505.
Hardy, O.J., Vekemans, X., 2002. SPAGeDi: a versatile computer program to analyse spatial genetic structure at the individual or population levels. Mol. Ecol. Notes 2, 618–620.
Hoffmann, AA, Blows, M.W., 1994. Species borders—ecological and evolutionary perspectives. Trends Ecol. Evol. 9, 223–227.
IENE, 2014. Malmö declaration protect remaining roadless areas. Call for a European Strategy to protect roadless areas. In: IENE 2014 International Conference on Ecology and Transportation Life for a Greener Transport Infrastructure, Malmö, Sweden.
Iliopoulos, G., 2009. Canis lupus (Linnaeus, 1758). In: Legakis, A., Maragou, P. (Ed.), Red Data Book of the Threatened Animal Species of Greece. Hellenic Zoological Society, Athens, pp. 389–390.
Kalinowski, S.T., 2005. HP-RARE 1.0: a computer program for performing rarefaction on measures of allelic richness. Mol. Ecol. Notes 5, 187–189.
Karamanlidis, A.A., De Gabriel Hernando, M., Georgiadis, L., Kusak, J., 2016. Activity, movement, home range and habitat use of an adult gray wolf in a Mediterranean landscape of northern Greece. Mammalia, https://doi.org/10.1515/mammalia-2015–0091.
Linnell, J.D.C., Boitani, L., 2012. Building biological realism into wolf management policy: the development of the population approach in Europe. Hystrix Ital. J. Mammal. 23, 80–91.
Linnell, J., Salvatori, V., Boitani, L, 2008. Guidelines for Population Level Management Plans for Large Carnivores in Europe. pp. 1–78.
Loiselle, BA, Sork, V.L., Nason, J., Graham, C, 1995. Spatial genetic structure of a tropical understory shrub, Psychotria officinalis (Rubicaceae). Am. J. Bot. 82, 1420–1425.
Moura, A.E., Tsingarska, E., Dabrowski, M.J., Czarnomska, S.D., Jędrzejewska, B., Pilot, M., 2014. Unregulated hunting and genetic recovery from a severe population decline: the cautionary case of Bulgarian wolves. Conserv. Genet. 15, 405–417.
Pilot, M., Jedrzejewski, W., Branicki, W., Sidorovich, V.E., Jedrzejewska, B., Stachura, K., Funk, S.M., 2006. Ecological factors influence population genetic structure of European grey wolves. Mol. Ecol. 15, 4533–4553.
Pilot, M., Branicki, W., Jedrzejewski, W., Goszczynski, J., Jedrzejewska, B., Dykyy, I., Shkvyrya, M., Tsingarska, E., 2010. Phylogeographic history of grey wolves in Europe. BMC Evol. Biol. 10, 104.
Piry, S., Luikart, G.L., Cornuet, J.M., 1999. BOTTLENECK: a computer program for detecting recent reductions in the effective size using allele frequency data. J. Hered. 90, 502–503.
Pritchard, J.K., Stephens, M., Donnelly, P., 2000. Inference of population structure multilocus genotype data. Genetics 155, 945–959.
Randi, E., 2008. Detecting hybridization between wild species and their domesticated relatives. Mol. Ecol. 17, 285–293.
Randi, E., 2011. Genetics and conservation of wolves Canis lupus in Europe. Mamm. Rev. 41, 99–111.
Rousset, F., Raymond, M., 1995. Testing heterozygote excess and deficiency. Genetics 140, 1413–1419.
Rousset, F., 2008. GENEPOP ‘007: a complete reimplementation of the GENEPOP software for Windows and Linux. Mol. Ecol. Resour. 8, 103–106.
Stenglein, J.L., Waits, L.P., Ausband, D.E., Zager, P., Mack, CM., 2010. Efficient, noninvasive genetic sampling for monitoring reintroduced wolves. J. Wildl. Manage. 74, 1050–1058.
Stronen, A.V., et al., 2013. North-south differentiation and a region of high diversity in European wolves (Canis lupus). PLoS One 8, e76454.
Valière, N., 2002. GIMLET: a computer program for analysing genetic individual identification data. Mol. Ecol. Notes 2, 377–379.
Van Oosterhout, C, Hutchinson, W.F., Wills, D.P.M., Shipley, P., 2004. MICRO-CHECKER: software for identifying and correcting genotyping errors in microsatellite data. Mol. Ecol. Notes 4, 535–538.
Verardi, A., Lucchini, V., Randi, E., 2006. Detecting introgressive hybrization between free-ranging domestic dogs and wild wolves (Canis pupus) by admixture linkage disequilibrium analysis. Mol. Ecol. 15, 2845–2855.
Votsi, N.E.P., Zomeni, M.S., Pantis, J.D., 2016. Evaluating the effectiveness of Natura 2000 Network for wolf conservation: a case-study in Greece. Environ. Manage. 57, 257–270.
Waits, L.P., Luikart, G., Taberlet, P., 2001. Estimating the probability of identity among genotypes in natural populations: cautions and guidelines. Mol. Ecol. 10, 249–256.
Yannic, G., Basset, P., Buchi, L., Hausser, J., Broquet, T., 2012. Scale-specific sex-biased dispersal in the Valais shrew unveiled by genetic variation on the Y-chromosome, autosomes, and mitochondrial DNA. Evolution 66, 1737–1750.
Zachariah Peery, M., Kirby, R., Reid, B.N., Stoelting, R., Doucet-Beer, E., Robinson, S., Vásquez-Carillo, C, Pauli, J.N., Palsbøll, P.J., 2012. Reliability of genetic bottleneck tests for detecting recent population declines. Mol. Ecol. 21, 3403–3418.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Karamanlidis, A.A., Czarnomska, S.D., Kopatz, A. et al. Wolf population genetics at the south-eastern edge of their European range. Mamm Biol 81, 506–510 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2016.06.007
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2016.06.007