GENETIC EVALUATION OF THE 3 CAPTIVE MEXICAN WOLF LINEAGES

The Mexican gray wolf appears to be extinct in the wild and exists now only in captivity. There are three captive putative Mexican wolf line ages: Certified, Ghost Ranch, and Aragon lineages. From pedigree analy sis, the Certified lineage has the lowest level of inbreeding and has retained the most founder alleles. In contrast, the Ghost Ranch has a high level of inbreeding and fewest founder alleles. From molecular ge netics data? particularly from microsatellite loci, it appears that al l of the lineages consist of Mexican wolves, and none of them appear t o have ancestry from dogs or coyotes. Further, the molecular data are consistent with the Certified lineage having three founders instead of the four previously assumed. From these findings, we recommend that t he three lineages be combined to increase the number of founders and t o postpone any inbreeding depression. The combination of pedigree anal ysis and molecular genetic data allowed us to resolve several long-sta nding concerns in Mexican wolves. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.