Why jackals thrive where humans dominate

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.

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New Golden Jackal species discovered

The Golden Jackal (Canis aureus) in Tanzania, Africa

For the first time in 150 years a new canid species has been discovered in Africa, by scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

The Golden Jackal of Africa (Canis aureus) has long been considered the same species as the Golden Jackals distributed throughout Eurasia, with the nearest source populations in the Middle East.

However, recent research indicates that they are actually two different species and that some African Golden Jackals aligned more closely to Gray Wolves (Canis lupus).

This is surprising given the absence of Gray Wolves in Africa and the phenotypic divergence between the two species.

The DNA results of the study provide consistent and robust evidence that populations of Golden Jackals from Africa and Eurasia should be recognised as two separate and distinct species, and it has been suggested that the Eurasian species should be named Eurasian Golden Jackal.

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