PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Elizabeth Heppenheimer
AU  - Kristin E. Brzeski
AU  - Ron Wooten
AU  - Will Waddell
AU  - Linda Y. Rutledge
AU  - Michael J. Chamberlain
AU  - Daniel R. Stahler
AU  - Joseph W. Hinton
AU  - Bridgett M. vonHoldt
TI  - Rediscovery of red wolf ghost alleles in a canid population along the American Gulf Coast
AID  - 10.1101/420356
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 420356
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/18/420356.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/18/420356.full
AB  - Rediscovering species once thought to be extinct or on the edge of extinction is rare. Red wolves have been extinct along the Gulf Coast region since 1980, with their last populations found in coastal Louisiana and Texas. We report the rediscovery of red wolf ghost alleles in a canid population on Galveston Island, Texas. We analyzed over 7,000 SNPs in 60 canid representatives from all legally recognized North American Canis species and two phenotypically ambiguous canids from Galveston Island. We found notably high Bayesian cluster assignments of the Galveston canids to captive red wolves with extensive sharing of red wolf private alleles. Today, the only known extant wild red wolves persist in a reintroduced population in North Carolina, which is dwindling amongst political and taxonomic controversy. Our rediscovery of red wolf ancestry after almost 40 years introduces both positive opportunities for additional conservation action and difficult policy challenges.