A Review on Animal Hybridization’s Role in Evolution and Conservation: Canis rufus (Audubon and Bachman) 1851—A Case Study

Abstract

Canis rufus is an example of animal whose conservational needs have been questioned because of its possible hybrid status. Control of hybridization has been defended and done in the wild to theoretically save the species. However, control of hybridization may not be the solution. Hybridization may be a phenomenon misconceived by many modern evolutionary biologists, and conservation guidelines over control on anthropogenic impacts may need revisions in order to respect the new perspectives on hybridization's role in evolution. The term "cladogamy" is being proposed to substitute "hybridization" and to refer to the crossing between two any given clades, due to difficulties from scientists and eventual arbitrary means of separating species from lower taxa.

The Anthropocene’s animal? Coywolves as feral cotravelers

“…In revealing the historical contingency of species divides, animals like coywolves are rendered unworthy of conservation (Stronen and Paquet, 2013) in language that often echoes eugenic desires to purge the body of impure elements (Pêgas, 2013). Referring to the instability of these notions, as shown by genetic modification, recombinant DNA and animal hybridization, Caccavale and Reise (2011) go on to suggest “This has provoked a deep anxiety among many people, an anxiety that has been variously described as a rejection of the ‘unnatural’ or a fear of the ‘alien’ or the ‘dangerous’.” Conservation biology is not immune to these views, where, as Rodrigo Vargas Pêgas (2013: 1) attests, hybridization has an “unnatural image.” We see this in Nowak’s panic around an acknowledgment of hybridization, as well as Geise’s (2005: 865) more recent work on coywolves, which asserts “the wolf now faces a new and unlikely threat. Molecular genetics research suggests that gray wolves have hybridized with coyotes in the northeastern United States.” Underpinning this contention is a biopolitical move that carries the resonance of the wolf bounty, but instead of killing wolves, they are saved from genetic swamping.…”