The Iberian wolf (Canis lupus) is the top predator in the Iberian environments in which it lives, feeding on a wide range of species, thus encountering a wide range of disease agents. Therefore, the wolf can serve as sentinel of environmental contamination with pathogens. We investigated the exposure of free-living wolves to 14 serovars of Leptospira interrogans sensu lato. Kidney samples from ...

Pleistocene diversity was much higher than today, for example there were three distinct wolf morphotypes (dire, gray, Beringian) in North America versus one today (gray). Previous fossil evidence suggested that these three groups overlapped ecologically, but split the landscape geographically. The Natural Trap Cave (NTC) fossil site in Wyoming, USA is an ideally placed late Pleistocene site to ...

Herein, we examine the hypothesis that relatively low densities of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) and the imperiled status of lynx (Lynx canadensis) may be partially due to an ecological cascade caused by the extirpation of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in most of the conterminous United States decades ago. This hypothesis focuses on 2 plausible mechanisms, one involving ‘‘mesopredator release’’...

Despite continuous historical distribution of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) throughout Eurasia, the species displays considerable morphological differentiation that resulted in delimitation of a number of subspecies. However, these morphological discontinuities are not always consistent with patterns of genetic differentiation. Here we assess genetic distinctiveness of grey wolves from the Caucas...

Cronin et al. (2015) examined genetic variability in North American canids, with a primary focus on wolf (Canis lupus) populations in southeast Alaska. After exploring broad patterns of variation for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in wolves across North America, the authors addressed the taxonomy of selected subspecies of wolves. Their conclusions have implications for conservation of t...

An extensive debate concerning the origin and taxonomic status of wolf-like canids in the North American Great Lakes region and the consequences for conservation politics regarding these enigmatic predators is ongoing. Using maternally, paternally and biparentally inherited molecular markers, we demonstrate that the Great Lakes wolves are a unique population or ecotype of gray wolves. Furthermo...

Introduction: In Iran, 95% of animal bites are attributed to domestic dogs and cats, while one-third of rabies victims are from wildlife. The wolf is one of the primary vectors of wildlife in the country. This study was aimed to assess the impact of wildlife on rabies transmission and to evaluate the efficacy of an oral rabies vaccine (ORV) in the gray wolf (Canis lupus pallipes). Methods: We s...

Workflow views abstract groups of tasks in a workflow into composite tasks, and are used for simplifying provenance analysis, workflow sharing and reuse. An unsound view does not preserve the dataflow between tasks in the workflow, and can therefore cause incorrect provenance analysis. In this demo we present WOLVES, a system that efficiently identifies and corrects unsound workflow views with ...

We followed the course of canine parvovirus (CPV) antibody prevalence in a subpopulation of wolves (Canis lupus) in northeastern Minnesota from 1973, when antibodies were first detected, through 2004. Annual early pup survival was reduced by 70%, and wolf population change was related to CPV antibody prevalence. In the greater Minnesota population of 3,000 wolves, pup survival was reduced by 40...

BACKGROUND Reestablishment of apex predators influences the availability and distribution of biomass for scavengers and can therefore be an important agent for structuring species communities. We studied how the re-colonization of the Scandinavian Peninsula by wolves (Canis lupus) affected the amount and temporal variation in use of moose (Alces alces) carcasses. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING...