During historical times many local populations of grey wolf (Canis lupus), once the most diffused... more During historical times many local populations of grey wolf (Canis lupus), once the most diffused mammal in the world, became extinct. Among these the Sicilian population, the biggest island of the Mediterranean Sea, was eradicated by human persecution in the early decades of the XX century. In order to reconstruct the genetic identity of the Sicilian wolf, we used ancient DNA techniques to analyse the mitochondrial DNA of the six known specimens actually stored in museums. We have successfully extracted and amplified a mtDNA fragment of the control region (CR) from four samples. Our analyses show that two samples have the same haplotype, that differs by two substitutions from the most diffused Italian haplotype (W14) and one substitution from the second Italian rare haplotype (W16). One of the others two samples shows a new wolf haplotype never described before and the fourth a haplotype common in dogs. Furthermore, all the detected wolf haplotypes in this study belonged to the mit...
Background The contemporary Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) represents a case of morphologica... more Background The contemporary Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) represents a case of morphological and genetic uniqueness. Today, Italian wolves are also the only documented population to fall exclusively within the mitochondrial haplogroup 2, which was the most diffused across Eurasian and North American wolves during the Late Pleistocene. However, the dynamics leading to such distinctiveness are still debated. Methods In order to shed light on the ancient genetic variability of this wolf population and on the origin of its current diversity, we collected 19 Late Pleistocene-Holocene samples from northern Italy, which we analyzed at a short portion of the hypervariable region 1 of the mitochondrial DNA, highly informative for wolf and dog phylogenetic analyses. Results Four out of the six detected haplotypes matched the ones found in ancient wolves from northern Europe and Beringia, or in modern European and Chinese wolves, and appeared closely related to the two haplotypes current...
ORIGINAL PAPER Monitoring wolves (Canis lupus) by non-invasive genetics ... Abstract Monitoring p... more ORIGINAL PAPER Monitoring wolves (Canis lupus) by non-invasive genetics ... Abstract Monitoring populations of elusive large carni-vores like wolves (Canis lupus), which are often distributed at low density in widespread forested areas, is difficult or exceedingly expensive. ...
During historical times many local populations of grey wolf (Canis lupus), once the most diffused... more During historical times many local populations of grey wolf (Canis lupus), once the most diffused mammal in the world, became extinct. Among these the Sicilian population, the biggest island of the Mediterranean Sea, was eradicated by human persecution in the early decades of the XX century. In order to reconstruct the genetic identity of the Sicilian wolf, we used ancient DNA techniques to analyse the mitochondrial DNA of the six known specimens actually stored in museums. We have successfully extracted and amplified a mtDNA fragment of the control region (CR) from four samples. Our analyses show that two samples have the same haplotype, that differs by two substitutions from the most diffused Italian haplotype (W14) and one substitution from the second Italian rare haplotype (W16). One of the others two samples shows a new wolf haplotype never described before and the fourth a haplotype common in dogs. Furthermore, all the detected wolf haplotypes in this study belonged to the mit...
Background The contemporary Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) represents a case of morphologica... more Background The contemporary Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) represents a case of morphological and genetic uniqueness. Today, Italian wolves are also the only documented population to fall exclusively within the mitochondrial haplogroup 2, which was the most diffused across Eurasian and North American wolves during the Late Pleistocene. However, the dynamics leading to such distinctiveness are still debated. Methods In order to shed light on the ancient genetic variability of this wolf population and on the origin of its current diversity, we collected 19 Late Pleistocene-Holocene samples from northern Italy, which we analyzed at a short portion of the hypervariable region 1 of the mitochondrial DNA, highly informative for wolf and dog phylogenetic analyses. Results Four out of the six detected haplotypes matched the ones found in ancient wolves from northern Europe and Beringia, or in modern European and Chinese wolves, and appeared closely related to the two haplotypes current...
ORIGINAL PAPER Monitoring wolves (Canis lupus) by non-invasive genetics ... Abstract Monitoring p... more ORIGINAL PAPER Monitoring wolves (Canis lupus) by non-invasive genetics ... Abstract Monitoring populations of elusive large carni-vores like wolves (Canis lupus), which are often distributed at low density in widespread forested areas, is difficult or exceedingly expensive. ...
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Papers by Davide Palumbo