Publicaties

We examined 834 nests built by western lowland gorillas in Cameroon between July 2008 and July 2011 to identify the plant species used in their construction. Preference for each plant species for nesting was assessed using a 'preference index' calculated by combining information on the occurrence of each species in the forest and in the nests. Forty-six plant species representing about 15 % of the total number of species in the forest and 26 % ...

Given current extinction trends, the number of species requiring conservation breeding programs (CBPs) is likely to increase dramatically. To inform CBP policies for threatened terrestrial vertebrates, we evaluated the number and representation of threatened vertebrate species on the IUCN Red List held in the ISIS zoo network and estimated the complexity of their management as metapopulations. Our results show that 695 of the 3,955 (23 ...

Chytridiomycosis is a lethal fungal disease contributing to declines and extinctions of amphibian species worldwide. The currently used molecular screening tests for chytridiomycosis fail to detect the recently described species Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans. In this study, we present a duplex real-time PCR that allows the simultaneous detection of B. salamandrivorans and Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. With B. dendrobatidis-and B. ...

European white stork are long considered to diverge to eastern and western migration pools as a result of independent overwintering flyways. In relatively recent times, the western and northern distribution has been subject to dramatic population declines and country-specific extirpations. A number of independent reintroduction programs were started in the mid 1950s to bring storks back to historical ranges. Founder individuals were sourced ...

Policy makers and managers are increasingly called upon to assess the state of biodiversity, and make decisions regarding potential interventions. Genetic tools are well-recognised in the research community as a powerful approach to evaluate species and population status, reveal ecological and demographic processes, and inform nature conservation decisions. The wealth of genetic data and power of genetic methods are rapidly growing, but the ...

Conservation breeding programmes often rely on intensive genetic management of the captive population. However, the relatedness between individuals and individual mean kinship are often estimated based on pedigree records, which are frequently incomplete or unreliable. Depending on the quality of a studbook (e.g. expressed as percentage of pedigree known), molecular information can substantially improve knowledge of a population, and therefore ...

The current biodiversity crisis encompasses a sixth mass extinction event affecting the entire class of amphibians. The infectious disease chytridiomycosis is considered one of the major drivers of global amphibian population decline and extinction and is thought to be caused by a single species of aquatic fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. However, several amphibian population declines remain unexplained, among them a steep decrease in ...