The red wolf once roamed a huge swath of the eastern United States. The historic range of these rust-colored canines stretched from Long Island across to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. But by 1972 the population was reduced to only roaming a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting.
红狼曾经在美国东部的大片地区出没。这些锈色犬科动物的历史范围从长岛一直延伸到密苏里州，接着一直延伸到德克萨斯-墨西哥边境。但到 1972 年，由于栖息地丧失和狩猎盛行，红狼的数量减少到仅在墨西哥湾沿岸的一小块地区活动。
To conserve the species, 14 individuals were captured as part of a breeding program. In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct—the captured wolves were all that was left.
为了保护该物种，作为育种计划的一部分，捕获了 14 只红狼。1980 年，它们的野生近亲被宣布灭绝——只剩下捕获的这些狼。
Kristin Brzeski: The species has gone through this huge bottleneck and through that lost a lot of genetic variation. And now there's a fair amount of inbreeding in the species because you can't help it when you have so few founders.
这个物种已经经历了巨大的瓶颈，并且失去了很多遗传变异。现在这个物种有相当数量的近亲繁殖，因为仅存数量如此之少时，这些情况实在是无能为力。
Samuels: That’s Kristin Brzeski, an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations.
这是密歇根理工大学助理教授克里斯汀·布尔泽斯基，他的研究重点是保护野生动物种群的遗传学。
Brzeski: I think, what captures the imagination with the red wolf, and I think this work, is it, it's been the underdog. It's been the underdog scientifically; it's been the underdog for conservation. It was, you know … all wolves were heavily persecuted, but the red wolves were heavily persecuted to the point that only 14 were left.
我认为这项工作一直处于劣势。这项工作在科学方面一直处于劣势; 这项工作在保护方面也一直处于劣势。所有的狼群都受到了严重的迫害，红狼被严重迫害到只剩下14只。
Samuels: Now, Brzeski and her collaborators have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: ghost alleles in wild coyote populations.
现在，克里斯汀和她的合作对象发现了一个惊人的新红狼基因库，该基因库可能有助于为这个小种群带来更多的多样性: 野生郊狼种群中的“幽灵”等位基因。
Alleles are the parts of a chromosome that encode specific genetic traits. Just like humans, canines inherit one allele from each parent for a certain gene. But why are these called “ghost” alleles?
等位基因是染色体上编码特定遗传特征的部分。如同人类一样，犬科动物从父母双方那里都继承了一个特定基因的等位基因。但为什么这些被称为“幽灵”等位基因?
Bridgett vonHoldt: So the ghost part is the red wolves are gone, and we presumed they took all of their genes with them. But what we also have to remember is when a population is dying out, it might find the best mate is the next closest related species. So a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. Maybe the red wolf dies, because that's what's been happening for red wolves, but all of those genes that it just passed on to its coyote hybrid offspring, now get to circulate and we've rediscovered those.
“幽灵”部分代表消失的红狼，我们推测它们带走了所有的基因。但我们还必须记住的是，当一个种群濒临灭绝时，这个种群可能会找亲缘关系最近的物种作为最佳伴侣。一只红狼和一只郊狼可以繁育后代。也许红狼会死掉，因为这就是发生在红狼身上的事情，但所有这些红狼遗传给与其杂交的郊狼的后代的基因，如今开始流传，我们重新发现了它们。
Samuels: Bridgett vonHoldt, who you just heard, is a collaborator working with Brzeski. Together, they found that some coyote populations in Louisiana and Texas who were protected from hunting still retain huge amounts of red wolf genes—some individuals are almost 60% red wolf.
布里奇特·冯·霍尔德，你们刚刚听过，是克里斯汀的合作对象。她们共同发现，路易斯安那州和德克萨斯州的一些受到保护、免受捕猎的郊狼种群仍然保留着大量的红狼基因--有些郊狼个体几乎保留了60%的红狼基因。
As red wolves are released back into the wild, breeding with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity. That’s almost like going back in time and un-doing the genetic bottleneck from 1980—making the new red wolf population more genetically diverse.
随着红狼被放归野外，与这些土狼一起繁殖，可以帮助极度濒危的物种恢复其部分遗传多样性。这几乎就像时光倒流，解除了1980年的基因瓶颈——使新的红狼种群在遗传上更加多样化。
vonHoldt: This would be kind of the opposite direction, taking the small isolated, you know, inbred population from the captive breeding program that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven't seen for 50 years or more. And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.
这将是一个相反的方向，从圈养繁殖项目中(这个项目中仍然保留着非常重要的红狼基因)取出较小的、封闭的、可以近亲繁殖的种群，并将它们放入一个有新的基因变异(这种变异已经有50年或更长时间没有看到过)的野生环境中。突然之间，希望这就像是基因遗传状况和某种反向基因遗传的超级组合，这些动物可以回到野外，重新做回自己。
Samuels: The next steps will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the ghost alleles hiding in coyote populations. Like with other wolf releasing efforts there might be some push back.
下一步将包括如何利用隐藏在郊狼种群中的“幽灵”等位基因放归红狼。就像其他放归狼群的努力一样，可能会有一些阻力。
vonHoldt: There will be controversy, there will be people who aren't happy. But there are people that are and are incredibly supportive. And I think also at the end of the day, there's a philosophy that we created this problem, we're responsible for fixing it.
归根结底，我认为应该持有一种理念--是我们制造了这个问题，我们有责任解决它。
Samuels: For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Fionna Samuels.
以上是《科学美国人》的60秒科学，我是费欧娜·塞缪尔。
The red wolf once roamed a huge swath of the eastern United States. The historic range of these rust-colored canines stretched from Long Island across to Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border. But by 1972 the population was reduced to only roaming a small area along the Gulf coast due to habitat loss and hunting.
To conserve the species, 14 individuals were captured as part of a breeding program. In 1980 their wild relatives were declared extinct—the captured wolves were all that was left.
Kristin Brzeski: The species has gone through this huge bottleneck and through that lost a lot of genetic variation. And now there's a fair amount of inbreeding in the species because you can't help it when you have so few founders.
Samuels: That’s Kristin Brzeski, an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations.
Brzeski: I think, what captures the imagination with the red wolf, and I think this work, is it, it's been the underdog. It's been the underdog scientifically; it's been the underdog for conservation. It was, you know … all wolves were heavily persecuted, but the red wolves were heavily persecuted to the point that only 14 were left.
Samuels: Now, Brzeski and her collaborators have found a surprising new pool of red wolf genes that might help bring more diversity to the tiny population: ghost alleles in wild coyote populations.
Alleles are the parts of a chromosome that encode specific genetic traits. Just like humans, canines inherit one allele from each parent for a certain gene. But why are these called “ghost” alleles?
Bridgett vonHoldt: So the ghost part is the red wolves are gone, and we presumed they took all of their genes with them. But what we also have to remember is when a population is dying out, it might find the best mate is the next closest related species. So a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring. Maybe the red wolf dies, because that's what's been happening for red wolves, but all of those genes that it just passed on to its coyote hybrid offspring, now get to circulate and we've rediscovered those.
Samuels: Bridgett vonHoldt, who you just heard, is a collaborator working with Brzeski. Together, they found that some coyote populations in Louisiana and Texas who were protected from hunting still retain huge amounts of red wolf genes—some individuals are almost 60% red wolf.
As red wolves are released back into the wild, breeding with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity. That’s almost like going back in time and un-doing the genetic bottleneck from 1980—making the new red wolf population more genetically diverse.
vonHoldt: This would be kind of the opposite direction, taking the small isolated, you know, inbred population from the captive breeding program that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven't seen for 50 years or more. And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.
Samuels: The next steps will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the ghost alleles hiding in coyote populations. Like with other wolf releasing efforts there might be some push back.
vonHoldt: There will be controversy, there will be people who aren't happy. But there are people that are and are incredibly supportive. And I think also at the end of the day, there's a philosophy that we created this problem, we're responsible for fixing it.
Samuels: For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Fionna Samuels.
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