Lifelong non-invasive genetic monitoring of a philopatric female wolf in the Tuscan Apennines, Italy

摘要: Wolves (Canis lupus), like most wild carnivores, are elusive and usually live at low density; this makes it challenging to monitor specific individuals through time. Non-invasive genetic sampling, when protracted over a long period and a sufficiently large geographic scale, has revealed an effective tool to follow individual patterns in a population. During a long-term project focused on the monitoring of presence and distribution of wolf packs in the Tuscan Apennines in Italy, we have followed the destiny of a single female wolf (F82) exclusively by the analysis of microsatellite multilocus genotypes obtained from non-invasive samples (n = 118 including scats, hair and blood residuals) collected from 2003 to 2014. From the natal pack, she dispersed to a neighboring area where she established a new territory together with an unrelated male. The pair persisted for 8 years, mating at least twice and …