Translocation of bighorn sheep in Arizona has positive genetic outcomes

Date:  March 6, 2019

Source:  University of Wyoming

Translocation is an important management tool that has been used for more than 50 years to increase bighorn sheep population numbers in Arizona and to restore herds to suitable habitat throughout their historical range. Yet, translocation also can alter the underlying genetic diversity and spatial structure of managed wildlife species in both beneficial and detrimental ways.

A University of Wyoming researcher led a seven-year study to evaluate the long-term impact of translocation actions on bighorn sheep. From 2005-2012, the research group characterized statewide genetic structure and diversity by using microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA data in 16 indigenous and translocated bighorn sheep populations in Arizona.

"Our study showed that it is possible to re-establish bighorn sheep populations without a reduction of gene diversity over a short period and without erosion of ancestral lineage," says Holly Ernest, a UW professor of wildlife genomics and disease ecology, and the Wyoming Excellence Chair in Disease Ecology in the Department of Veterinary Sciences and the Program in Ecology.

Ernest was the senior and corresponding author of a paper, titled "Genetic Outcomes of Translocation of Bighorn Sheep in Arizona," that was published today (March 6) in the Journal of Wildlife Management. The journal publishes manuscripts containing information from original research that contributes to basic wildlife science. Suitable topics include investigations into the biology and ecology of wildlife and their habitats that have direct or indirect implications for wildlife management and conservation.

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In developing nations, national parks could save endangered species

Date:  March 7, 2019

Source:  Purdue University

The West African chimpanzee population has declined by nearly 80 percent in recent decades. Habitat loss is threatening their livelihoods across the continent, and especially in Senegal, where corporate mining has started eating up land in recent years.

The geographical distribution of West African chimps overlaps almost perfectly with gold and iron ore deposits, and unfortunately for the chimps, mining is a key piece of the country's development strategy, said Stacy Lindshield, a biological anthropologist at Purdue University.

Extractive industries are already improving people's livelihoods and promoting investment and infrastructure development, and researchers are trying to find a way to protect Senegal's chimps without surrendering these benefits. Many of Earth's animal species are now dying off at accelerated rates, but as human's closest living relatives, they tend to tug at our heart strings. Chimps are scientifically important, too -- because they participate in collective activities such as hunting and food-sharing, they're often studied by social science researchers.

A new study of animal populations inside and outside a protected area in Senegal, Niokolo-Koba National Park, shows that protecting such an area from human interaction and development preserves not only chimps but many other mammal species. The findings were published in the journal Folia Primatologica.

"We saw the same number of chimpanzee species inside and outside the park, but more species of carnivores and ungulates in the protected area," Lindshield said.

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Debate on predator-prey relationships

Date:  March 7, 2019

Source:  University of Stirling

Experts have shed new light on the relationship between predators and their prey after studying how elk responded to the risk posed by grey wolves in an American national park.

Co-led by the University of Stirling, new research used global positioning system (GPS) tracking technology to monitor the behaviour of both species in Yellowstone National Park -- which spans Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho -- where wolves were reintroduced in the mid-1990s.

Earlier studies have suggested that elk -- the main prey of grey wolves in Yellowstone -- modified their behaviour to avoid specific areas or times when the risk of being hunted was high. However, the latest research has found "little evidence" of elk responding to wolf predation risk.

Dr Jeremy Cusack, of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Stirling, led the study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

The project was a collaboration with the University of Oxford, Utah State University, and the National Park Service in the United States. The team collected movement data between 2012 and 2016 using GPS collars placed on individual female elk and at least one member of each wolf pack, in the northern section of Yellowstone. The collars recorded the location of the animals every hour, providing comprehensive data on how they used the landscape.

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Impact of urbanization on wild bees underestimated

Date:  March 6, 2019

Source:  University of Michigan

Wild bees are indispensable pollinators, supporting both agricultural productivity and the diversity of flowering plants worldwide.

But wild bees are experiencing widespread declines resulting from multiple interacting factors. A new University of Michigan-led study suggests that the effects of one of those factors -- urbanization -- may have been underestimated.

The study, led by a group of current and former U-M students and conducted at sites across southeast Michigan, looks at one aspect of this topic they say has received scant attention from bee researchers: the sex ratio of wild bees and how it changes across a rural-to-urban land-use gradient.

The team found that the sex ratio of wild bees became more male-dominated as urbanization increased, mainly driven by a decline in medium- and large-bodied ground-nesting female bees. The study, published March 6 in the journal Scientific Reports, is believed to be the first investigation of observed sex ratio in a complete wild bee community along a rural-to-urban gradient.

"These findings have potential implications on bee population health and pollination services, since male and female bees often have different pollination behaviors," said Paul Glaum, one of the study's first authors and a postdoctoral researcher in U-M's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

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New species of stiletto snake capable of sideways strikes discovered in West Africa

Date:  March 11, 2019

Source:  Pensoft Publishers

Following a series of recent surveys in north-western Liberia and south-eastern Guinea, an international team of researchers found three stiletto snakes which were later identified as a species previously unknown to science.

The discovery, published in the open-access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution by the team of Dr Mark-Oliver Roedel from the Natural History Museum, Berlin, provides further evidence for the status of the western part of the Upper Guinea forest zone as a center of rich and endemic biodiversity.

Curiously, stiletto snakes have unusual skulls and venom delivery system, allowing them to attack and stab sideways with a fang sticking out of the corner of their mouths. While most of these burrowing snakes are not venomous enough to kill a human -- even though some are able to inflict serious tissue necrosis -- this behaviour makes them impossible to handle using the standard approach of holding them with fingers behind the head. In fact, they can even stab with their mouths closed.

The new species, called Atractaspis branchi or Branch's Stiletto Snake, was named to honor to the recently deceased South African herpetologist Prof. William Roy (Bill) Branch, a world leading expert on African reptiles.

The new species lives in primary rainforest and rainforest edges in the western part of the Upper Guinea forests. Branch's Stiletto Snake is most likely endemic to this area, a threatened biogeographic region already known for its unique and diverse fauna.

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