European Wolves

[Ngala]

4 - CENTRAL EUROPEAN LOWLAND POPULATION

"The Central European Lowland population is mainly shared between Poland and Germany (each with >30 packs or 150–200 animals) (Reinhardt et al., 2015), with recent occurrences in Denmark (Andersen et al., 2015), Czech Republic and the Netherlands (Gravendeel et al., 2013), resulting in a total of 300–400 animals ranging over approximately 24000 km2. This population was formed in the late 1990s (Andersen et al., 2015), when a small number of wolves from north-eastern Poland (Czarnomska et al., 2013), recolonized the Lusatian border region between Germany and Poland. While the population is expanding steadily (Kaczensky et al., 2013), strong founder effects have likely resulted in genetic separation between this and the Baltic founder population, despite its close relatedness and evidence for gene flow (Czarnomska et al., 2013; Andersen et al., 2015)."

The main threats
"In the expanding Central European Lowland population the main threats are road mortality, high human population density and illegal killing. In western Poland the loss of any individual has been thought to influence the survival of the pack or interrupt colonization of adjacent areas (Jedrzejewski et al., 2008). Species distribution models have shown that human factors, especially road density and culling might limit the further spread of the species in Germany (Fechter & Storch, 2014) (Table 4). The connectivity of the Central European Lowland population with neighbouring populations is still weak and currently restricted to occasional gene flow from the Baltic population (Kaczensky et al., 2013). However, the population shows a continuous increase, suggesting that the carrying capacity has not been reached yet."

Source: 
Hindrikson, M., Remm, J., Pilot, M., Godinho, R., Stronen, A. V., Baltrūnaité, L., Czarnomska, S. D., Leonard, J. A., Randi, E., Nowak, C., Åkesson, M., López-Bao, J. V., Álvares, F., Llaneza, L., Echegaray, J., Vilà, C., Ozolins, J., Rungis, D., Aspi, J., Paule, L., Skrbinšek, T. and Saarma, U. (2016), Wolf population genetics in Europe: a systematic review, meta-analysis and suggestions for conservation and management. Biol Rev. doi:10.1111/brv.12298

Wolf from Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), Germany. Credits to Jürgen Borris Naturfotografie.

*This image is copyright of its original author

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