The origin, connectivity, and individual specialization of island wolves after deer extirpation

A wolf pack discovered on Pleasant Island in Southeast Alaska, USA defies the assumed obligate relationship between wolves and ungulates by persisting on sea otters and other marine prey after causing the local extirpation of deer. This pack is also subjected to additive anthropogenic sources of mortality in apparent isolation from other wolves. We used molecular methods to determine the origin of Pleasant Island wolves and ask how they persist under these circumstances. We applied DNA metabarcoding and genotyping by amplicon sequencing with a novel SNP panel to quantify variation in marine foraging behavior within packs, among sexes, and individuals using 957 scats collected from the island and the adjacent mainland from 2016-2022. We additionally used tissue samples to quantify relatedness and gene flow with reduced representation sequencing. Male, female, and individual island wolves all consistently consumed sea otter (63.2% wPOO). In contrast, mainland wolves fed on ungulates (51.8..., , , # Wolf diet data used in \"The origin, connectivity, and individual specialization of island wolves after deer extirpation\" Eriksson, C.E., Roffler, G.H., Allen, J.M., Lewis, A., and Taal Levi.

## Dataset: scat_wpoo.csv

Each row represents a wolf scat sample.

* SampleNumber = Unique ID for each sample.
* Pack = sample was collected within the home range of this wolf pack.
* Prey wPOO columns are the weighted percent of occurrence of each prey category.