Projecten

The Eurasian Black Vulture, Aegypius monachus, a large raptor species of high conservation concern native to southern Europe and central Asia, is facing serious threats in the wild. An international conservation breeding program coordinated at Planckendael Animal Park, and reintroduction projects in southern Europe aim to maintain a stable captive population in European zoos while also producing enough young to be released into the wild each ...

Military macaws have a discontinuous distribution range, stretching from Mexico to Argentina. Their patchy distribution range corresponds to three described allopatric morpho-subspecies (A.m. militaris, A.m. mexicana and A.m. boliviana) making this species interesting from a phylogeographic point of view. Taking part in the general trends of increased levels of habitat loss and illegal bird trade the species is listed on the IUCN Red List of ...

Centrale onderzoeksvraag/doel
De montane regenwouden van Zuidwest Ethiopië zijn het primaire centrum van diversiteit van Coffea arabica en de oorsprong van alle Arabicakoffie die wereldwijd wordt geteeld. Wilde arabicakoffie is een unieke bron van genetische diversiteit voor de veredeling van verbeterde arabicacultivars. Ondanks het belang ervan voor de koffie-industrie en voor het levensonderhoud van de plattelandsbevolking in die ...

The protection, preservation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems and their functions is of global importance. For European states it became legally binding mainly through the EU-Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC). In order to assess the ecological status of a given water body, aquatic biodiversity data are obtained and compared to a reference water body. The quantified mismatch ...

Objectives
1. To determine the variation and risk factors for drug-resistant tuberculosis in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. To evaluate the clinical utility of a novel molecular assay in various combinations with existing methods for diagnosis of HIV-related tuberculosis.
3. To determine the clinical predictors of mycobacteremia among HIV-infected smear- negative adults in a high prevalence HIV/TB setting in relation to the utility of ...

Habitat fragmentation has altered the availability of food resources for many species, which along with other factors determines an individual’s energetic condition and therefore its fitness. An animal’s energetic condition, which results from the balance of energy acquisition and expenditure, is largely modulated by behavioral, psychological and environmental factors, which in turn, are affected by anthropogenic disturbances. Due to the ...

Understanding the evolution of behavioural differences in closely related species is one of the major challenges in modern behavioural ecology. Recently, genetics have been more and more applied to understand how these differences come about. For example variation in genes coding for neuropeptide receptors in the brain has been linked to variation in social behaviour among different species. In terms of human sociality, our two closest living ...

Centrale onderzoeksvraag/doel
In de veredeling van voedergras streeft ILVO naar hoogkwalitatieve cultivars die leiden tot betere dierprestaties met een positievere impact op het milieu en die resulteren in een gezonder dierlijk eindproduct. Zo verbetert een hoger linoleenzuurgehalte in het gras het gehalte aan omega-3-vetzuren en CLA in melk en vlees. Een hoger suikergehalte in het gras leidt tot een betere eiwitbenutting en een verminderde ...