Reaffirming the Loma Mountains National Park in Sierra Leone as a critical site for the conservation of West African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus).

The population of West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) is declining rapidly mostly due to the impact of human activities and habitat loss. Sierra Leone harbors the third largest population of this subspecies, recently reclassified as Critically Endangered in the 2016 IUCN Red List. Population monitoring provides crucial data for planning and evaluating conservation and management policies.

Heterogeneous road networks have no apparent effect on the genetic structure of small mammal populations.

Roads are widely recognized to represent a barrier to individual movements and, conversely, verges can act as potential corridors for the dispersal of many small mammals. Both barrier and corridor effects should generate a clear spatial pattern in genetic structure. Nevertheless, the effect of roads on the genetic structure of small mammal populations still remains unclear.

Revisiting the phylogeography and demography of European badgers (Meles meles) based on broad sampling, multiple markers and simulations.

Although the phylogeography of European mammals has been extensively investigated since the 1990s, many studies were limited in terms of sampling distribution, the number of molecular markers used and the analytical techniques employed, frequently leading to incomplete postglacial recolonisation scenarios. The broad-scale genetic structure of the European badger (Meles meles) is of interest as it may result from historic restriction to glacial refugia and/or recent anthropogenic impact. However, previous studies were based mostly on samples from western Europe, making it difficult to draw robust conclusions about the location of refugia, patterns of postglacial expansion and recent demography.

First report of Troglotrema acutum (Digenea, Troglotrematidae) in the Eurasian badger Meles meles in the Iberian Peninsula and presumptive lesions caused in the host.

A total of 109 badger Meles meles skulls from Catalonia (north-eastern Iberian Peninsula) were studied for helminths. The tremadode Troglotrema acutum is reported here for the first time in the Eurasian badger in the Iberian Peninsula and southern Europe. Three methodologies were used to detect this trematode: an examination for surface lesions, axial computed tomography and fresh skull dissection.