This project investigates novel ways of predicting the effects of future climate change on the survival of animal species, focusing on wolves as a case study. Wolves have been forced to adapt to rapid changes in climate over the past c. 40,000 years: They are one of the few carnivores to have survived the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions. This species appears to have undergone a population turnover event at some point in the past 30,000 years, when a morphologically and genetically distinct lineage went extinct, being replaced by the lineage of wolves that persists to the present day. We are describing the details of this extinction and replacement event, and determine the genetic processes that led to this difference between the two populations.
Conrado A. C., Arruda H., Stanton D. W. G., James S. W., Kille P., Brown G., Silva E., Dupont L., Taheri S., Morgan A. J., Simões N., Rodrigues A., Montiel R., Cunha L (2017) The complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of the pantropical earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus (Rhinodrilidae, Clitellata): Mitogenome characterization and phylogenetic positioning. Zookeys. 2017 Aug 8;(688):1-13. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.688.13721. eCollection 2017.
Morrissey, C. A., Stanton, D. W. G., Pereira, M. G., Newton, J., Durance, I., Ormerod, S. J. (2013) Eurasian dipper eggs indicate elevated organohalogenated contaminants in urban rivers. Environmental Science and Technology, 47(15) 8931-8939. doi: 10.1021/es402124z.