| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2017: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000)
Fiscal Year 2016: ¥2,470,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥570,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
On Hokkaido, Japan, the Ezo wolf (Canis lupus hattai), an apex predator, became extinct at the end of the 19th century. To infer the ecological role of the Ezo wolf in the past ecosystem, I performed carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis and radiocarbon dating of bone specimens of the wolf and its prey species. Radiocarbon dating suggested that most of the wolves examined came from different populations or generations. The discrimination-corrected isotopic ratios of five of the seven wolves were almost the same as those of Sika deer at the same sites. In contrast, those of two wolves had clearly higher isotopic values than those of deer, suggesting that these wolves depended partly on marine prey such as salmon and marine mammals. Thus, Ezo wolves had similar ecological roles to Canadian grey wolves, and were a second subspecies shown to have fed on a marine diet, in addition to the 'coastal wolves' of British Columbia.
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