Talk:Great Lakes boreal wolf

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Evolution can act on populations and sometimes these evolutionary forces are capable of implementing novel traits into a subspecies. Beneficial traits coding for larger size, a stronger bite, even faster mobility and larger areas of habitation might be selectively advantageous for a species that continually competes for the available resources, occupation of territory and the ability to find a mate. The species of wolf containing the most novel genes will have greater fitness and thereby natural selection is what keeps those genes within the population. In studying evolution, it is understood that the exchange of genes by way of sexual reproduction between subspecies allows for extensive diversity. This diversity becomes the genetic source of information often used to explain a species’ adaptations and overall fitness. Gene introgression deals heavily with producing situations where hybridization is the primary source of genetic variation. Genetic introgression between coyotes, eastern wolves, Great Lakes boreal wolf and the grey wolf analyzed through mitochondrial phylogenies suggest high rates of hybridization (Roland K, et al 2009).Hybridization in some instances is thought to have directed speciation by altering the genome structure enough where some linages of the ancestral Grey Wolf may become reproductively isolated. However this level of speciation is not observed with respect to the Great Lakes boreal wolf. Many populations of wolves have been studied to produce viable offspring often times with a variety subspecies including coyotes that are able to occupy the same ecological niche. The introgression of genes explains how genetic information is integrated from one species to another through the process of back-crossing. Back-crossing in this sense is the mating of a hybrid offspring with an individual belonging to the parental generation. The hybrid of a boreal wolf with a coyote that later mates with the descendent of the grey wolf produces this type of backcross. Evidence for hybridization has been correlated to larger skull and body size, increased sexual dimorphism and greater colonization of the hybrid offspring. The variation of traits and adaptive behavioral patterns better suit this species which can increase the probability of successful hunting towards much larger prey and occupation of various niches once left unpopulated (Roland K, et al 2009).

Possible additions to page

According to the the newest editions of Wilson and Reeder's Mammal Species of the world the eastern wolf is still widely considered a subspecies of the gray wolf. It might be advantageous for this page to include reasons for why coyotes do not directly mate with the gray wolf yet as stated the boreal wolf is capable and readily mates with the gray wolf. Information like behavioral and feeding habits, the variety of environments that the subspecies wolves live in and the selective pressures that call for directly breeding across subspecies could be added to increase the information included on the page. There is a study Introgression of Coyotes Mitochondrial DNA into Sympatric North American Gray Wolf Populations conducted from The Department of Biology, University of California that offers some insight on how coyote DNA has mixed with the DNA of Gray wolves based on a growing hybrid zone shared by the two species. Eberly.52 (talk) 00:11, 2 October 2014 (UTC) Gage Eberly

"Great Lakes region" wolf

• The Eastern wolf exists two forms, the larger being referred to as the Great Lakes wolf and the smaller being the Algonquin wolf (Lehman 1991, Thiel 2012).
• To complicate matters, all of the research done by groups associated with Bob Wayne use the term "Great Lakes region" wolf to describe both wolves. They use this to contrast it with the "southeastern region wolf" (i.e. rufus). Much of this article is based on this research.
• This article is now a WP:CONTENTFORK from the Eastern wolf article, although it began with good intentions - our knowledge has increased since it was first created.

I see two options going forward:

1. change this article into a redirect to the Eastern wolf article

or, if the majority of editors here agree,

2. redevelop it to be only about the unique phenotype and genotype within the Eastern wolf cluster referred to as the Great Lakes wolf. Given the information now reflected in Eastern wolf#Wolf genome, the hybrid box would need to change to lupus x latrans.

If I hear no further over the next week, I intend on converting this article into a redirect.

William Harris • (talk) • 11:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support redirect. I've always been skeptical about the idea of lycaon as a separate species, being something of a "lumper", and I've always thought that any differences in physiology and size were within the tolerances of the rather malleable lupus genome and could in part be explained by a combination of Bergmann's rule and the theory that there were multiple waves of lupus colonization across the Bering land bridge, i.e., the idea that after arising as a distinct species in Central Eurasia, wolves spread into North America, while in the northern part of their Eurasian range populations of larger individuals emerged following Bergmann's, which themselves came across at a significantly later date and didn't spread as widely, explaining why there's strong genetic variance between the larger northwestern wolves and the other North American populations to the south and east, the same populations that suffered the most under extripation caused by human settlement and were therefore the most likely to have cross breeding with coyotes, thereby reinforcing the trend. So the idea that this is a separate hybrid of lupus and lycaon that needs its own article has long been a mistake to me. oknazevad (talk) 00:10, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support redirect. Mariomassone (talk) 09:57, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Redirect to Eastern wolf now implemented. William Harris • (talk) • 07:04, 24 November 2018 (UTC)