Date: May 22, 2018
Source: North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences
Coyotes now live across North
America, from Alaska to Panama, California to Maine. But where they came from,
and when, has been debated for decades. Using museum specimens and fossil
records, researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and
North Carolina State University have produced a comprehensive (and
unprecedented) range history of the expanding species that can help reveal the
ecology of predation as well as evolution through hybridization. Their findings
appeared in ZooKeysin May.
The geographic distribution of
coyotes has dramatically expanded since 1900, spreading across much of North
America in a period when most other mammal species have been declining.
Although this unprecedented expansion has been well documented at the
state/provincial scale, the continent-wide picture of coyote spread was coarse
and largely anecdotal. A more thorough compilation of available records was
needed. "We began by mapping the original range of coyotes using
archeological and fossil records," says co-author Dr. Roland Kays, Head of
the Museum's Biodiversity Lab and Research Associate Professor in NC State's
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources. "We then plotted their
range expansion across North America from 1900 to 2016 using museum specimens,
peer-reviewed reports, and game department records." In all, Kays and lead
author James Hody reviewed more than 12,500 records covering the past 10,000
years for this study.
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!