Canis Spiritus
A quest to save endangered species led conservation geneticist Kristin Brzeski (CFRES) to the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, home to a unique population of "ghost wolves" — coyotes confirmed in 2016 as a wild reservoir of genes for the critically endangered red wolf.
Since then, much of Brzeski's research and teaching attention at Tech has been devoted to genetic admixture — mingling the genes of isolated populations through interbreeding — as a conservation strategy. In a world beset by climate change and habitat loss, she believes hybridization offers a winning strategy in the struggle to reverse a global biodiversity crisis.
“We’re losing species faster than we know what to do, and it’s hard for conservation groups and federal agencies to act quickly,” says Brzeski. “So admixture might be a way to maintain and buffer unique species. I think these canids on the Gulf Coast are a poster child for what conservation might be in the future, and for what techniques we can develop and use to understand and mitigate population loss.”
Read about Galveston’s ghost wolves and Brzeski’s conservation efforts in our 2024 Michigan Tech Magazine.