APRIL 30,
2019
by Alvin
Powell, Harvard University
As humans
put nature under the plow, asphalt, and concrete, some creatures thrive through
an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach, embracing our
disruption of the natural order, and rushing to fill the void created by
hunting and habitat change.
Nathan Ranc,
a doctoral student studying jointly in Harvard's Department of Organismic and
Evolutionary Biology (OEB) and the Fondazione Edmund Mach in Italy, has been
working with European biologists to document the surprising spread of the
golden jackal through Eastern Europe.
Originally a
creature of the warmer, drier environments of Turkey, the Middle East, and
India, the jackal has spread north as far as the Baltic Sea nation of Estonia,
walking for the first time in human
memory—and perhaps ever—under northern forests' pines.
Ranc,
working in the labs of OEB Professor Paul Moorcroft and Francesca Cagnacci, the
2015–2016 Hrdy Fellow at OEB and now at the Fondazione Edmund Mach, has helped
track the jackals' European spread and is analyzing data to better understand
what environments Canis aureus prefers and how its interactions with native
creatures—particularly the recovering wolf—affect its spread.
Posts
