Considering Pleistocene North American wolves and coyotes in the eastern Canis origin story.

ABSTRACT: The evolutionary origins and hybridization patterns of Canis species in North America have been hotly debated for the past 30 years. Disentangling ancestry and timing of hybridization in Great Lakes wolves, eastern Canadian wolves, red wolves, and eastern coyotes are most often partitioned into a 2-species model that assigns all ancestry to gray wolves and/or coyotes, and a 3-species model that includes a third, North American evolved eastern wolf genome. The proposed models address recent or sometimes late Holocene hybridization events but have largely ignored potential Pleistocene era progenitors and opportunities for hybridization that may have impacted the current mixed genomes in eastern Canada and the United States. Here, we re-analyze contemporary and ancient mitochondrial DN

SUBMITTER: Wilson PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8258226 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature