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Wolves in the panhandle of southeast Alaska are currently being considered as an endangered species by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in response to a petition by environmental groups. These groups are proposing that the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) subspecies that inhabits the entire region and a distinct population segment of wolves on Prince of Wales Island are threatened or endangered with extinction.
Whether or not these wolves are endangered with extinction was beyond the scope of our study. However our research quantified the genetic variation of these wolves in southeast Alaska which can contribute to assessing their status as a subspecies.
Because the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) defines species as “species, subspecies, and distinct population segments”, these categories are all considered “species” for the ESA. Although this definition is not consistent with the scientific definition of species it has become the legal definition of species for the ESA.
Therefore we have two questions to consider:
Are the wolves in southeast Alaska a subspecies?
Are the wolves on Prince of Wales Island a distinct population segment?
The literature on subspecies and distinct population segment designation is vast, but it is important to understand that subspecies is a taxonomic category, and basically refers to a group of populations that share an independent evolutionary history.
Taxonomy is the science of biological classification and is based on evolutionary history and common ancestry (called phylogeny). Species, subspecies, and higher-level groups (e.g, a genus such as Canis) are classified based on common ancestry. For example, wolves and foxes share common ancestry and are classified in the same family (Canidae), while bobcats and lions are classified in a different family (Felidae) because they share a common ancestry that is different from foxes and wolves.
Wolf in southeast Alaska. Photo credit: Kristian Larson, the Alaska Dept of Fish and Game (Wildlife Conservation Division, Region I). Image used with permission.
Subspecies designations are often subjective because of uncertainty about the relationships among populations of the same species. This leads many scientists to reject or ignore the subspecies category, but because the ESA is the most powerful environmental law in the United States the analysis of subspecies is of great practical importance.
Our results and other research showed that the wolves in Southeast Alaska differed in allele frequencies compared to wolves in other regions. Allele frequencies reflect the distribution of genetic variation within and among populations. However, the wolves in southeast Alaska do not comprise a homogeneous population, and there is as much genetic variation among the Game Management Units (GMU) in southeast Alaska as there is between southeast Alaska and other areas.
Our research data showed that the wolves in southeast Alaska are not a homogeneous group, but consist of multiple populations with different histories of colonization, isolation, and interbreeding. The genetic data also showed that the wolves on Prince of Wales Island are not particularly differentiated compared to the overall differentiation in Southeast Alaska and do not support designation as a distinct population segment.
The overall pattern for wolves in southeast Alaska is not one of long term isolation and evolutionary independence and does not support a subspecies designation. Other authors, including biologists with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, also do not designate wolves in southeast Alaska as a subspecies and there is general recognition that North America wolf subspecies designations have been arbitrary and are not supported by genetic data.
There is growing recognition in the scientific community of unwarranted taxonomic inflation of wildlife species and subspecies designations to achieve conservation goals. Because the very nature of subspecies is vague, wildlife management and conservation should focus on populations, including wolf populations. This allows all of the same management actions as proposed for subspecies, but with increased scientific rigor.
Headline image credit: Alaskan wolf, by Douglas Brown. CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0 via Flickr.
Title: Galapagos George Written By: Jean Craighead George Paintings By: Wendell Minor Published By: Harper, 2014. Themes/Topics: Galapagos Islands, giant tortoise, extinction Suitable for ages: 7-11 Opening: This is a story that took so long to happen that only the stars were present at the … Continue reading →
I'm always a bit amazed and saddened when I visit a museum and see a stuffed dodo bird. I imagine that some day in the distant future, young and old alike may only be able to see the rhino, elephant, panda, and other such animals in zoos or museums, their species having long since died out in the wild.
Saving our planet means keeping the air, water, and land habitable for both humans and animals alike. As the human population continues to grow, life becomes more difficult for many species of animals.
Today's book pairing looks both at animals that can no longer be found on Earth, and those that are in danger of disappearing.
Poetry Book
Swan Song: Poems of Extinction, written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Christopher Wormell, is a collection of 20 poems that pay tribute to species that have disappeared since crossing paths with humankind. The book opens with these disturbing words.
More than ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. . . . On Earth, six animal species die every hour, many of the most recent due to climate change, habitat destruction, or human greed, carelessness or indifference.
A timeline runs across the bottom of the pages, with the poems ordered by when a species became extinct. You'll also find its scientific name and where it once lived. The first poem is to the aurochs, a species from which modern cattle descended that died out c. 1627. The last poem is to Miss Waldron's red Colobus monkey, a species that died out in 2000. In between you'll find familiar and unfamiliar animals, like the dodo and the blue buck.
The Arizona Jaguar
Description: Loner; nightfall eyes; Coat of spots on spots (disguise); Once the New World's largest cat; Mountain, grassland habitat; Fed on any kind of meat; Stumbled down a one-way street; Color of a jealous sun. Status: Nowhere. Future: None.
The book concludes with a series of endnotes describing each animal in further detail.
Nonfiction Picture Book
CAN WE SAVE THE TIGER?, written by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Vicky White, is an oversize volume with gorgeously detailed pencil sketches and a text that neither talks down to readers nor glosses over the difficult problems we humans have created. While Jenkins begins by discussing animals that are now extinct and why that is so, he goes on to discuss endangered species and once-threatened animals whose numbers are now on the rise.
Here's how the book opens.
The world's quite a big place, you know. But it's not that big, when you consider how much there is to squeeze into it.
After all, it's home not just to billions of people, but to the most amazing number of other kinds of living things, too. And we're all jostling for space.
We humans have changed the world a lot over the years, to make room for ourselves and to produce the things we need. We've turned forests into farmland, dammed rivers, and built towns and cities to live in. Some of the other animals and plants that we share the Earth with have coped with the changes very well. But some haven't.
In fact, some have coped so badly that they're not here anymore.
They're extinct.
Discussing endangered species is a complex issue, impacting not only the animals themselves, but the humans that live in close proximity to them. Saving animals, while noble, is not always a black and white issue. Jenkins tackles this head on in a conversational and understandable way. Here's how he addresses the issues facing humans and tigers.
Tigers are big and they are beautiful and they're fierce. And all this makes life difficult for them these days.
Because they're big, they need a lot of space. But the countries where they live, like India and Indonesia, have huge numbers of people in them too, all trying to make a living and needing to be fed.
And because they're beautiful, people have always hunted them for their skins. They also kill them for their bones and meat to use as medicines.
And because tigers are fierce, they don't mix very well with humans...
So if you were a poor farmer trying to make a living with a couple of cows and a few goats, you might not be too happy if you found there was a hungry tiger living nearby. And if you knew that someone might pay you more for a tiger skin and some bones than you earn in three whole months working in the fields, then you might find it very tempting to set a trap or two, even if you knew it was against the law.
Perhaps it's not too surprising that there aren't that many tigers left.
Animals profiled include dodo, stellar sea cow, marsupial wolf, great auk, broad-faced potoroo, tiger, Asian elephant, sloth bear, African hunting dog, partula snail, quokka, mariana fruit dove, ground iguana, white-rumped vulture, sawfish, European crayfish, golden arrow poison frog, American bison, white rhinocerous, Antarctic fur seal, vicuna, kakapo, Rodrigues flying fox, whooping crane, Bermuda petrel, and polar bear. On the final page readers will find an illustration of Sander's slipper orchid, a plant that is protected because it is endangered. Back matter includes suggestions for further Web research and an index.
Perfect Together
While Lewis' book focuses on extinct species, Jenkins' covers the range from extinct, to endangered, to making a comeback. Begin be reading some of the poems in SWAN SONG and discuss with students the reasons that these animals have become extinct. Follow this with Jenkins' book and see if some of these same reasons have contributed to the placement of animals on the endangered species list. These are difficult and sobering topics, so do ask students to think concretely about what they can do to help or make a difference.
For additional resources, consider these sites.
The Mammoth Extinction Game is an interdisciplinary science, math, and social studies lesson where students examine how the wooly mammoth became extinct about 11,000 years ago. First, they play a hands- on game with dice and graphing to understand how the mammoth population declined. Then, as a class, they use a system dynamics model to see what would happen to the population under varying conditions.
The Scholastic Study Jams video on Population Growth describes how species become endangered and extinct.
Discovery Science has an article on Top 10 Extinct Species in which they describe 10 animal species no longer living.
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History site Learning Zone: Extinct and Endangered contains information on some of the extinct species pictured or on display at the museum.
The TEDx Event on DeExtinction, hosted by the National Geographic Society, presented a variety of speakers discussing the prospects of reviving extinct species and re-introducing them to the wild.
Finally, I'll end today be recommending this video.
After watching, check out this LiveScience article entitled
Are frogs a canary in a coal mine? We don’t actually know. What we do know is that amphibians have been disappearing for decades and all we have are theories of why. In their new book, Extinction in Our Times: Global Amphibian Decline, James P. Collins and Martha L. Crump have gathered everything we know about disappearing frogs and used it as a lens to see clearly the larger stories: climate change, conservation of biodiversity, and a host of profoundly important ecological, evolutionary, and ethical issues.
The following post is an excerpt from Extinction in Our Times, explaining why we should care about the loss of biodiversity in general, and why we should worry about frogs specifically.
Why Should We Care about Loss of Biodiversity?
Conservation biologists, philosophers, environmental ethicists, and others offer several key reasons to conserve biodiversity. One argument is that organisms have direct economic value for humans. We use plants and animals for medicines, food, clothes, building materials, recreation, and other luxuries and necessities. But what if an organism that is of no use to us for food or hides is screened for useful medicinal compounds and found to have none? Do we sanction its extermination? Why must a plant or animal be of direct economic benefit to humans to have worth? Economic value alone is not the only reason to preserve biodiversity.
Another reason often given…to conserve biodiversity is that organisms, as components of ecosystems, provide services, and their interactions with other organisms contribute to the overall healthy functioning of ecosystems… On a practical level, biologists want to know just how much the loss of a few species will reduce the quality of services within a specific ecosystem. Two schools of thought prevail.
One idea, called the “rivet hypothesis,” is that every species contributes to ecosystem integrity. The analogy is that biological species are like rivets in an aircraft. Only a limited number of rivets can be removed from an aircraft before it falls apart. Similarly, as species are lost, at some point ecosystem function becomes damaged.
The alternative view, called the “redundant species hypothesis,” suggests that high species richness is not necessary to ecosystem function. The argument is that as long as the biomass of primary producers, consumers, decomposers, and other trophic levels is maintained, ecosystems can function perfectly well with fewer species… Some ecologists suggest that even if all the organisms now considered to be threatened with extinction did indeed go extinct, other plants and animals would take over their roles and ecosystems would continue to function with scarcely a hitch.
Going from theory and empirical data for specific ecosystems to generalizations about all ecosystems, however, is a huge leap. Scientists are a long way from agreeing on which species (if any particular ones) are crucial to maintain productive ecosystems…
Why Should We Care if Amphibians Decline?
People differ in their concern over amphibian declines… Peter Daszak, who at the time was at the Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, and his colleagues proposed that global declines of amphibian populations are “perhaps one of the most pressing and enigmatic environmental problems of the late 20th century.” At the other extreme, an editor emeritus of a Tennessee newspaper wrote: “We read an article recently that indicated that frogs are becoming an endangered species. The information in the article indicated that scientists (interested in frogs) were unable to explain what has happened. Personally, we have not missed the frogs as we have little contact with them.”
If we could chat with that editor emeritus, how would we convince him that conservation of amphibian diversity is important? Why should we care if amphibians disappear?
…We should care if amphibians disappear because we use them for our own benefit. Every year we use huge quantities of frogs…in medical research and for teaching purposes. Isolation, identification, and characterization of novel chemical compounds that occur in the granular glands of anuran skin have led to the development of new drugs for human use. In 2001, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated the average quantity of frog legs sold for human consumption to be 4716 metric tons annually from 1987 to 1997. We buy millions of amphibians each year for pets: poison dart frogs, pacman frogs, White’s tree frogs, and fire-bellied toads to name but a few.
Amphibians play a key role in energy flow and nutrient cycling, in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. They…serve as “conveyor belts” by transferring energy from invertebrates to predators higher up on the food chain. This transfer of energy is efficient because amphibians expend relatively little energy to maintain themselves. About 50 percent of the energy an amphibian gets from food is converted into new tissue. That, in turn, is transferred to the next level in the food chain when a predator eats the amphibian…
Amphibians provide the world a valuable service through their eating habits. Tadpoles eat tremendous quantities of algae. In doing so, they alter the dynamics of aquatic ecosystems and reduce the rate of natural eutrophication (over-enrichment of water with nutrients, resulting in excessive algal growth and oxygen depletion). Most adult amphibians eat insects and other arthropod prey. A population of 1000 cricket frogs (Acris crepitans, small tree frogs about 3 to 3.8 cm long) consumes an estimated 4.8 million small insects and other arthropods annually.
Thus, both because of what they eat and because they serve as food for fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, and other animals, amphibians play a central role in the food web…
A world without amphibians would be an aesthetically less interesting place. Frogs serve as good luck charms for people all over the world, because of their association with rain. Frogs symbolize fertility—some species produce more than 20,000 eggs at a time. They represent resurrection, because they seemingly appear out of nowhere after heavy rains. Frogs are “magic.” How else could they transform from aquatic, algae-eating swimmers into terrestrial, carnivorous jumpers? From tadpole form to frog form?
Amphibians, especially frogs and toads, provide inspiration for our artistic endeavors. Many cultures have folk tales about a kissed toad turning into a handsome prince. Who could forget Mr. Toad in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, or Beatrix Potter’s Jeremy Fisher… Archeologists worldwide unearth ceramic vases and vessels with anuran designs, and frog and toad images are woven into tapestries and carved into wood and stone.
Finally, from an ethical standpoint, we are obliged to respect and protect amphibians, just as we should respect and protect all other organisms. It is easier for people to respect organisms considered to be “good” than the “bad” ones such as malaria-carrying mosquitoes. As just indicated, most cultures value amphibians.
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Occasionally it can take some persuasion to convince people that understanding geography means more than accumulating an encyclopedic knowledge of mountains, rivers, and capital cities. Geography actually informs all sorts of relationships between people and their surroundings, including religion, agriculture, industry, and language. (more…)
