MOLECULAR-GENETIC AND MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSES OF THE AFRICAN WILD DOG (LYCAON-PICTUS)

African wild dog populations have declined precipitously during the la st 100 years in eastern Africa. The possible causes of this decline in clude a reduction in prey abundance and habitat; disease; and loss of genetic variability accompanied by inbreeding depression. We examined the levels of genetic variability and distinctiveness among population s of African wild dogs using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) restriction sit e and sequence analyses and multivariate analysis of cranial and denta l measurements. Our results indicate that the genetic variability of e astern African wild dog populations is comparable to that of southern Africa and similar to levels of variability found in other large canid s. Southern and eastern populations of wild dogs show about 1% diverge nce in mtDNA sequence and form two monophyletic assemblages containing three mtDNA genotypes each. No genotypes are shared between the two r egions. With one exception, all wild dogs examined from toes had south ern African genotypes. Morphological analysis supports the distinction of eastern and southern African wild dog populations, and we suggest they should be considered separate subspecies. An eastern African wild dog breeding program should be initiated to ensure preservation of th e eastern African form and to slow the loss of genetic variability tha t, while not yet apparent, will inevitably occur if wild populations c ontinue to decline. Finally, we examined the phylogenetic relationship s of wild dogs to other wolf-like canids through analysis of 736 base pairs (bp) of cytochrome b sequence and showed wild dogs to belong to a phylogenetically distinct lineage of the wolf-like canids.