Gray wolves were recently distributed across nearly the entire Holarctic, from tundra to forests, from prairies to deserts. The wolves in these very different habitats live in different ways, but they all share a common social structure based on the family, or pack, where juveniles may spend protracted periods of time learning about their environment. In the last few hundred years many wolf populations have declined or gone extinct due to human persecution and land-use changes. As the environment continues to change, so do wolf populations. Some populations are in imminent risk of extinction, and others are expanding. One of the many risks to theses populations is contact with domesticated relatives, dogs.

We study the evolution of wild and domestic canids, and their interactions on each other. There are a number of ongoing studies focusing on different aspects of the evolution using ecological genetics, genomics and ancient DNA.

Links to:

Genetic resources

Ongoing projects

Network

Publications

Community involvement