Berlin wild boars: The one faithful city borough dwellers, the other from the surrounding area
Berlin’s urban forests harbour isolated wild boar populations, whereas urban wild boars from built-up areas originate from neighbouring rural areas. This is the surprising result of a scientific study by the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), the „Landeslabor Berlin Brandenburg“ and the Natural History Museum in Luxemburg which used techniques from molecular genetics to analyse the structure and origins of the wild boar populations. The study was part of a doctoral dissertation funded by the IZW and financially supported by National Geographic and the Foundation for Nature Conservation Berlin (“Stiftung Naturschutz Berlin”). The results are published in the scientific journal “Journal of Applied Ecology”. ...
Long-term monitoring of sapovirus infection in wild carnivores in the Serengeti: novel strains, host-species specificity and a declining infection risk with increasing group size
Sapoviruses are an emerging group of viruses of the group of caliciviruses and well known agents of gastric enteritis, but very little is currently known about their role in wildlife ecology or the genetic strains that infect wildlife. Research findings by a group of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) describe for the first time, sapovirus infection in African wild carnivores in the Serengeti ecosystem, including the spotted hyena, the African lion and the bat-eared fox. The results from two decades of monitoring revealed several sapovirus outbreaks of infection in spotted hyenas and, counter-intuitively, that the risk of infection declined as group sizes increased. These findings were published in the scientific magazine “PLOS ONE”. ...
LED-lighting influences the activity of bats
The widespread replacement of conventional bulbs in street lighting by energy-saving light-emitting diodes (LEDs) has considerable influence on bats as urban nocturnal hunters. Opportunistic bats lose hunting opportunities whereas light sensitive species benefit. This was shown in a recent study by Christian Voigt and Daniel Lewanzik from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW). ...
Discovery of an ape virus in an Indonesian rodent species
The gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV) is a medically important tool in cancer therapies. GALV is a retrovirus pathogenic to its host species, the southeast Asian lar gibbon (Hylobates lar) and thought to have originated from a cross-species transmission and may not originally be a primate virus at all. An international research team headed by the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) screened a wide range of rodents from southeast Asia for GALV-like sequences. The discovery of a new GALV in the grassland melomys (Melomys burtoni) from Indonesian New Guinea supports the hypothesis that this host species, and potentially related rodent lineages in Australia and Papua New Guinea, may have played a key role in the spread of GALV-like viruses. ...
Welcome to the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research!
Willkommen am Leibniz-Institut für Zoo- und Wildtierforschung (IZW)! Deutsche Version der IZW-Webseite.
The Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) is an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to developing the scientific basis for novel approaches to wildlife conservation.
In the current era of the Anthropocene, virtually all ecosystems in the world are subjected to man-made impacts. As yet, it is not possible to predict the response of wildlife to the ever-increasing global change. Why are some wildlife species threatened by anthropogenic change, while others persist or even thrive in modified, degenerated or novel habitats?
To answer this and related questions, the IZW conducts basic and applied research across different scientific disciplines. We study the diversity of life histories and evolutionary adaptations and their limits, including diseases, of free-ranging and captive wildlife species, and their interactions with people and their environment in Germany, Europe and worldwide.
The IZW is a member of the Leibniz Association and the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.