Foxes are considered to be particularly adaptable and suited to life in large cities. A team of scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburg State Laboratory has now deciphered an important aspect of these adaptations. Using stable isotope analysis, they showed that individual red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have a much narrower diet than might be expected from their omnivorous habits. The population of country foxes had a much broader diet than their urban conspecifics, whose diet differed little between individuals. The diet of urban and country foxes showed little overlap. This combination of specialisation and flexibility is a key to this omnivore's adaptability, according to a paper published in the scientific journal “Ecology and Evolution”.

Both seasonal migration and the maintenance and use of an effective immune system come with substantial metabolic costs and are responsible for high levels of oxidative stress. How do animals cope in a situation when energy is limited and both costly body functions are needed? A team of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) investigated whether and how the immune response changes between pre-migration and migration seasons in the Nathusius pipistrelle bat. They confirmed that migratory bats favour the energetically “cheaper” non-cellular (humoral) immunity during an immune challenge and selectively suppress cellular immune responses. Thereby, bats save energy much needed for their annual migration. The results are published in the scientific journal “Scientific Reports”.

Scientists of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) together with colleagues representing 39 institutions from 17 EU countries have called upon the European Commission to support genomics research as part of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 in the upcoming Horizon Europe programme. The group proposes to the EU to provide competitive funding for sequencing the genomes of all animals, plants, and microorganisms in Europe (at least 200,000 species) in a Pan-European collaborative effort tentatively named European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA). This urgent call is intended to foster better understanding, management and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Scientists, politicians and interested citizens are invited to add their names as signatories to the list in support of ERGA at https://vertebrategenomesproject.org/erga.