The Eurasian wolf is returning to Middle Europe - so far, the observed pack structure encloses a parental pair and it's offspring (new pups and subadult siblings). On the other hand, we know about very big pack sizes (of unknown genetic relationships) in northern America (D.Mech at Isle Royale) - surely reflecting some special biogeographic conditions. Do we know about the factors which form the social organization in wolves?
A mathematical approach to self-organized hierarchies:
http://cognition.ups-tlse.fr/_guyt/documents/articles/15.pdf
This is an interesting model I did not know yet...thanks a lot.
Cheers, Ernst-Hermann
Based on my own readings and observations, wolf group size is often related to population density, more specifically the potential opportunity for young wolves to find a suitable breeding vacancy within their population. Basically, if vacancies are hard to come by, the young wolves are forced to stay within their natal pack longer. This is one of several key ecological factors that influences group or pack size of wolves. After reviewing a variety of wolf studies, the data seem to support this explanation at least in a correlative manner. Of course, wolf populations are so challenging to study, it is extremely difficult (maybe impossible) to test this notion experimentally with wolves. Stronger experimental results have been demonstrated with cooperatively breeding birds, which in many cases, probably represent reasonable models to help explain wolf cooperative breeding structure. You might review Thurber and Peterson (1993, J. Mammal. 74:879-889) and Hatchwell and Komdeur (2000, Animal Behav. 59:1079-1086) and related papers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gray_wolf_populations_by_country
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/WOLF/aboutwolves/WolfPopUS.htm
Olesya: Sorry - following the recommended weblinks I could not find any hint concerning the Point of my question - did I miss something?
All the best,
Ernst-Hermann
You might want to broaden out to other pack carnivores with variable composition. I suggest looking at the work of McNutt, McCreery, and others on African Painted Dogs.
Hello James, Debra and Sven
thanks for these very experienced comments ...in my opinion there is always some "gut-feeling" on this point...I think this is worth to be subject to further Exploration.
Cheers,
Ernst-Hermann
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