The effect of a warmed enema during ovum pick-up on subsequent oocyte maturation in Southern white rhinoceros .

Background: Rhinoceros are currently one of the most threatened mammal species globally. Slow population growth, increased poaching and habitat destruction have led to increased conservation efforts for each species. Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have been implemented in an attempt to aid reproductive outputs for the conservation of these endangered species.

Tradeoffs between resources and risks shape the responses of a large carnivore to human disturbance.

Wide-ranging carnivores experience tradeoffs between dynamic resource availabilities and heterogeneous risks from humans, with consequences for their ecological function and conservation outcomes. Yet, research investigating these tradeoffs across large carnivore distributions is rare. We assessed how resource availability and anthropogenic risks influence the strength of lion (Panthera leo) responses to disturbance using data from 31 sites across lions' contemporary range.

Environmental predictors of filarial infection in Amazonian primates: Ecological factors and primate filarial infection.

Filarial nematode infections are common in primates, but have received little attention in the Neotropics. Epidemiological data on filarial infections in primates are still too sparse to fully understand the complex of this parasitism, especially because of the difficulty in studying the ecology and epidemiology of wild primates..

Poaching of African elephants indirectly decreases population growth through lowered orphan survival.

Prolonged maternal care is vital to the well-being of many long-lived mammals. The premature loss of maternal care, i.e.

Identifying gaps in the photographic record of the vascular plant flora of the Americas.

Field photographs of plant species are crucial for research and conservation, but the lack of a centralized database makes them difficult to locate. We surveyed 25 online databases of field photographs and found that they harboured only about 53% of the approximately 125,000 vascular plant species of the Americas. These results reflect the urgent need for a centralized database that can both integrate and complete the photographic record of the world's flora.

Environmental and anthropogenic factors synergistically affect space use of jaguars.

Large terrestrial carnivores have undergone some of the largest population declines and range reductions of any species, which is of concern as they can have large effects on ecosystem dynamics and function. The jaguar (Panthera onca) is the apex predator throughout the majority of the Neotropics; however, its distribution has been reduced by >50% and it survives in increasingly isolated populations. Consequently, the range-wide management of the jaguar depends upon maintaining core populations connected through multi-national, transboundary cooperation, which requires understanding the movement ecology and space use of jaguars throughout their range.

Post COVID-19: a solution scan of options for preventing future zoonotic epidemics.

The crisis generated by the emergence and pandemic spread of COVID-19 has thrown into the global spotlight the dangers associated with novel diseases, as well as the key role of animals, especially wild animals, as potential sources of pathogens to humans. There is a widespread demand for a new relationship with wild and domestic animals, including suggested bans on hunting, wildlife trade, wet markets or consumption of wild animals. However, such policies risk ignoring essential elements of the problem as well as alienating and increasing hardship for local communities across the world, and might be unachievable at scale.

-reactive antibodies in Canadian polar bears.

is a promiscuous bacterium that infects a variety of species but has not been reported in free-ranging polar bears . Sera from 385 polar bears from the western Hudson Bay region, 1986 to 2017, were tested for reactivity to with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays using anti-canine IgG and protein G as secondary reagents. Sera from bears had variable reactivity to antigens, and there was no difference among bears that had a history of coming near the town of Churchill, Manitoba, and bears that did not.

Historical population declines prompted significant genomic erosion in the northern and southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum).

Large vertebrates are extremely sensitive to anthropogenic pressure, and their populations are declining fast. The white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is a paradigmatic case: this African megaherbivore has suffered a remarkable decline in the last 150 years due to human activities. Its subspecies, the northern (NWR) and the southern white rhinoceros (SWR), however, underwent opposite fates: the NWR vanished quickly, while the SWR recovered after the severe decline.

Behavioral patterns of bats at a wind turbine confirm seasonality of fatality risk.

Bat fatalities at wind energy facilities in North America are predominantly comprised of migratory, tree-dependent species, but it is unclear why these bats are at higher risk. Factors influencing bat susceptibility to wind turbines might be revealed by temporal patterns in their behaviors around these dynamic landscape structures. In northern temperate zones, fatalities occur mostly from July through October, but whether this reflects seasonally variable behaviors, passage of migrants, or some combination of factors remains unknown.

Integrating biobanking could produce significant cost benefits and minimise inbreeding for Australian amphibian captive breeding programs.

Captive breeding is an important tool for amphibian conservation despite high economic costs and deleterious genetic effects of sustained captivity and unavoidably small colony sizes. Integration of biobanking and assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) could provide solutions to these challenges, but is rarely used due to lack of recognition of the potential benefits and clear policy direction. Here we present compelling genetic and economic arguments to integrate biobanking and ARTs into captive breeding programs using modelled captive populations of two Australian threatened frogs, namely the orange-bellied frog Geocrinia vitellina and the white bellied frog Geocrinia alba .

Exploiting common senses: sensory ecology meets wildlife conservation and management.

Multidisciplinary approaches to conservation and wildlife management are often effective in addressing complex, multi-factor problems. Emerging fields such as conservation physiology and conservation behaviour can provide innovative solutions and management strategies for target species and systems. Sensory ecology combines the study of 'how animals acquire' and process sensory stimuli from their environments, and the ecological and evolutionary significance of 'how animals respond' to this information.

Environmental DNA metabarcoding as a useful tool for evaluating terrestrial mammal diversity in tropical forests.

Innovative techniques, such as environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, are now promoting broader biodiversity monitoring at unprecedented scales, because of the reduction in time, presumably lower cost, and methodological efficiency. Our goal was to assess the efficiency of established inventory techniques (live-trapping grids, pitfall traps, camera trapping, mist netting) as well as eDNA for detecting Amazonian mammals. For terrestrial small mammals, we used 32 live-trapping grids based on Sherman and Tomahawk traps (total effort of 10,368 trap-nights); in addition to 16 pitfall traps (1,408 trap-nights).

Evaluating a large-scale online behaviour change intervention aimed at wildlife product consumers in Singapore.

Interventions to shift the behaviour of consumers using unsustainable wildlife products are key to threatened species conservation. Whether these interventions are effective is largely unknown due to a dearth of detailed evaluations. We previously conducted a country-level online behaviour change intervention targeting consumers of the Critically Endangered saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) horn in Singapore.

Digital data sources and methods for conservation culturomics.

Ongoing loss of biological diversity is primarily the result of unsustainable human behavior. Thus, the long-term success of biodiversity conservation depends on a thorough understanding of human-nature interactions. Such interactions are ubiquitous but vary greatly in time and space and are difficult to monitor efficiently at large spatial scales.

Fermented food consumption in wild nonhuman primates and its ecological drivers.

Objectives: Although fermented food use is ubiquitous in humans, the ecological and evolutionary factors contributing to its emergence are unclear. Here we investigated the ecological contexts surrounding the consumption of fruits in the late stages of fermentation by wild primates to provide insight into its adaptive function. We hypothesized that climate, socioecological traits, and habitat patch size would influence the occurrence of this behavior due to effects on the environmental prevalence of late-stage fermented foods, the ability of primates to detect them, and potential nutritional benefits.