Late-Pleistocene and early Holocene history of the canid fauna of Europe (Canidae)

Abstract

In the sub-fossil assemblages of Europe the red fox is clearly the most frequent carnivorous mammalian species with a total of 1553 records. In depositions from the Weichselian Glacial the red fox Vulpes vulpes is, a typical representative of the Holocene fauna, already recorded in 100 assemblages. The Iberian peninsula, Italian peninsula and Balkans were theorised as glacial refugia. Well-founded facts give reason to believe that V. vulpes was also distributed in the Carpathian refuge. Later on, the Crimean peninsula would also appear to be a possible glacial refuge of the red fox. In the last warmer complex of interstadials during the Pleni-Glacial (Hengelo-Denekamp, 38,000-25,000 BC) the red fox was distributed in central Europe. Its distribution during this epoch extended at least in part to southern England. The earliest well-dated records of V. vulpes in central Europe after the Maximum Glaciation lie between 14,000 and 13,500 BC. Already during the early Late-Glacial (13,500 BC) the red fox appeared in typical glacial faunal communities. A separation to glacial refugia was only possible for 10,000 years. During the last warmer Pleni-Glacial complex of interstadials (38,000-25,000 BC) in central Europe a sympatric distribution of the arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) and the red fox probably existed. During the Last Glacial Maximum (22,000-18,000 BC) the arctic fox was exclusively distributed in central Europe, outside of the refuges. The combined distribution of A. lagopus and V. vulpes during the Late-Glacial (15,000-9500 BC) in central Europe, with the probable exception of the Allerød, is precisely documented by sub-fossil assemblages. In the Pleni-Glacial the wolf Canis lupus was distributed in geographic regions that served as glacial refugia of more warm-climate adapted species. Concerning the wolf no drastic decrease of the distribution is assumed. The Holocene presence of C. lupus is probably not caused by recolonisation.

Legal implications of range expansions in a terrestrial carnivore: the case of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) in Europe

“…As noted above, subfossil records denote golden jackal presence in parts of Europe for thousands of years (Sommer and Benecke 2005). At any rate, as the recent and ongoing range expansion of the golden jackal in Europe is apparently not the result of active introduction by humans, it should be classified in the same category as the collared dove, and not that of the ruddy duck.…”

“…Paleontological records indicate that golden jackals were absent from Europe in the Pleistocene and most likely colonized the continent in the early Holocene (Sommer and Benecke 2005). Pre-sixteenth century records of golden jackal presence in Europe concern the Adriatic coast in Croatia (Vuletić-Vukasović 1908;Malez 1984), and the Mediterranean and Black sea regions of Greece and Bulgaria (Spassov 1989;Sommer and Benecke 2005;Markov 2012).…”

“…Pre-sixteenth century records of golden jackal presence in Europe concern the Adriatic coast in Croatia (Vuletić-Vukasović 1908;Malez 1984), and the Mediterranean and Black sea regions of Greece and Bulgaria (Spassov 1989;Sommer and Benecke 2005;Markov 2012). The first confirmed records of golden jackal presence in the Pannonian (or Carpathian) Basin date from the nineteenth century (Tóth et al 2009).…”

Genome-wide signatures of population bottlenecks and diversifying selection in European wolves

“…It has been unclear, though, whether the distinctiveness of these populations results from their long-term isolation or recent geographical separation resulting from extinction of the wolf in central-western Europe. The wolf range in Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum was not reduced to the southern refugia (see Sommer and Benecke, 2005), so the effect of Pleistocene glaciations on population structuring in this species may be overestimated. Our estimates support the ancient divergence of the three European populations (5600-3200 years ago), but this date is considerably later than the Last Glacial Maximum (B20 000 years ago).…”

“…The spatial expansion has been documented based on the sub-fossil record (Sommer and Benecke 2005), but it is possible that it was not accompanied by a substantial demographic expansion, for example, due to declines of large herbivore prey (see Hofreiter and Barnes 2010) and exponential growth of the human population (see for example, McEvoy et al, 2011). The demographic reconstruction based on high-coverage genome sequences shows a continuous decline of wolf populations in Europe, Middle East and East Asia since B20 000 years ago until the present (Freedman et al, in press).…”