Wolf Cultures

Research Blog, 23.08.2008, Kurt Kotrschal

Re.: M. MUSIANI, J. LEONARD, H. CLUFF, C. GATES, S. MARIANI, P. PAQUET, C. VILÀ and R. WAYNE: Differentiation of tundra/taiga and boreal coniferous forest wolves: genetics, coat colour and association with migratory caribou. Molecular Ecology 16, 4149-4170 (2007)

It is well known that wolves live in packs which defend their territories and that only the highest ranking female and male reproduce - right? Not quite. Musiani et al. (2007) substantiate, what many observers have already reported in the past: Canadian wolves (Canis lupus occidentalis) do not only come as sedentary territorials, but also as nomads, who follow their prey, Caribus, over long-distance annual migrations. Nomads and sedentary wolves therefore, live in different traditions which even inhibit gene flow between them. As in other socially complex vertebrates, such as Orcas or humans the conditions for sympatric speciation are, also met in wolves, with cultural differences serving as major reproductive barriers.

View the slideshow (1 image)   

A spectacular example of different lifestyles in the same species is provided by Orcas. Costal groups are sedentary, very “vocal” and hunt fish; pelagic Orcas hunt down marine mammals up to the size of sperm whales in silence. There doese not seem to be a lot of gene flow between the two cultures. Virtually the same differentiation in life styles was recently demonstrated by Musani et al (2007) in Canadian wolves via combining state-of-the-art genetics, telemetry and statistical analysis: Dark-coated, sedentary wolves of the Canadian taiga woodland hunt elk and deer and defend their territories against neighbouring packs. In contrast, light-coloured nomadic wolves follow the annual migrations of their major prey, huge herds of Caribu. The latter spend the winters in the taiga, in the area of territorial wolves, to migrate northwards in spring and to give birth to their calves in the open tundra, more than 2000km north of their wintering areas. The nomadic wolves migrate with them and take calves, old or weak Caribu as prey. Whether these “herdsmen” wolves defend “their” herd against alien wolves, is unknown. This migratory tradition in wolves probably exists for approx. 10 000, since the retreat of the glaciers following the peak of the last ice age.

Nomadic wolves are genetically distinct from their sedentary conspecifics. Individuals from different cultures don not seem to particularly like each other. At least the sedentary packs forcefully defend their territories against the nomadic intruders who compete with them temporarily for local prey. Interbreeding is rare and if it occurs, nomadic males sire offspring with sedentary females. Wolves get in heat in winter when the ranges of the sedentaries and nomads overlap. For quite complex social reasons only sedentary females fertilized by nomadic males have a slight chance to raise their offspring to sexual maturity, but not the other way round.

With their Caribu, nomadic packs with their gravid females travel North in spring. They raise their litters in dens which are approx. 1000km North of those of the sedentary woodland wolves. Meanwhile the Caribus give birth to their calves another 1000km to the North. When the nomadic wolf offspring are able to keep pace with the pack, in late fall, aged 4-5 months, the Caribus with their calves approach them from North, making it feasibel for the nomadic packs with their still young offspring to migrate South with their prey to the wintering grounds in the taiga forest.

Despite of species-specific behaviour, social dispositions and pack organization, wolves show an astonishing flexibility and persistance in forming and maintaining peculiar traditions. This is strongly remeniscent even to humans, who also prefer to reproduce within their own cultures and sub-cultures. Even minor socio-economic differences are effective genetic barriers in humans. Whether such social traditions in in wolves are termed “cultures”, as many primatologist prefer to do, or whether the more conservative term “traditions” is used, is a matter of definition and hence, relatively unimportant. Wolves and stone-age people have in common that they are either sedentary or nomadic, depending on their primary source of food. This is probably one of the reason for the match between wolves and ancient humans, which ultimately led to dogs being the closest animal companion of mankind even today.

How that could happen is one of the research topics of our newly founded Wolf Science Center. The findings by Musiani et al. (2007) are highly relevant for our work, because they show how flexible and adaptible and at the same time, conservative wolves can be. We may be critisized that due to our sozialization program, training and test procedures, to work with “enculturated” wolves. We can only fully agree to that. What else? All decent wolves in the world are enculturated by their respective socio-cultural environments; our wolves are no exception. Non-enculturated wolves wold be socio-cognitively crippled. No matter how enculturated - they still remain wolves. Those cognitive and social features we plan exploring at the WSC probably remain relatively unaffected by cultural differences during socialization, but in reverse, ere probably an important base for the formation of specific traditions.