Populations of the world's rarest dog,
the Ethiopian wolf, are genetically fragmenting, scientists say.
Fewer than 500 of Africa's only wolf
species are thought to survive.
Now a 12-year study of Ethiopian wolves
living in the Ethiopian highlands has found there is little gene flow between
the small remaining populations.
That places the wolves at greater risk of
extinction from disease, or habitat degradation.
In a study published in the journal Animal
Conservation, Dada Gottelli of the Zoological Society of London and
colleagues in Oxford, UK and Berlin, Germany, quantified the genetic diversity,
population structure and patterns of gene flow among 72 wild-living Ethiopian
wolves.
The team sampled wolves living within six
of the remaining seven remnant populations, as well as from one population at
Mount Choke, that has since become extinct.
Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20041534
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