News

Hippos in the Great Ruaha River in Tanzania face a profound loss of their habitat during the dry season. The river has much less water during this season than in previous decades because it is increasingly extracted for human use. As a consequence, the river dries up. Researchers from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) have now examined how this affects the distribution of hippos. Their results reveal extensive and long distance movements, as hippos search for vital daytime resting sites. The study has been published in the scientific journal “PLOS ONE”.

Habitat conversion and fragmentation, logging, illegal hunting, fires: The rainforests and wildlife on Borneo, the third largest island in the world, are highly threatened. Now, an international research team under the leadership of the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, has published a roadmap for more targeted conservation efforts for Bornean cats and small carnivores in a special supplement of the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.

For successful reintroduction of lynx into the wild, the number of released animals is crucial. If only a few lynx are reintroduced to found a population, the genetic diversity is too low to ensure their long-term sustainability. An international research team has recently published these findings in the scientific journal “Conservation Genetics”. The researchers highlight the need to strengthen newly established European lynx populations by additional translocations of lynx as well as other conservation measures.

An international team of researchers from Germany and Indonesia has discovered new insights into the evolutionary history of the Javan leopard. The results of the study confirm that Javan leopards are clearly distinct from Asian leopards and probably colonised Java around 600,000 years ago via a land bridge from mainland Asia. The study, published in the scientific journal “Journal of Zoology”, highlights the urgent need for concerted conservation efforts to preserve the Javan leopard from extinction.

In December 2015 an international group of scientists convened in Austria to discuss the imminent extinction of the northern white rhinoceros and the possibility of bringing the species back from brink of extinction. The discussions of this historic meeting appear in the international Journal Zoo Biology. The publication of this work is designed as part of the ongoing effort to raise awareness for the extinction crisis facing rhinos and many other species while also reaching out to the scientific community to share and gather information.

Measures increasing the birth-rate can save the world’s smallest rhino from extinction

A new study examines the decline of the Sumatran rhino in Borneo. It concludes that the remnant populations of Sumatran rhinos can only be rescued by combining efforts of total protection with stimulation of breeding activity. The researchers suggest to resettle small isolated populations and to undertake measures to improve fertility. The case of the recently captured female rhino in Kalimantan, Borneo shows the importance of immediate action. The article has been published in the scientific journal “Global Ecology and Conservation”.

Show me what you ate and I’ll tell you where you come from. This, to put it simply, is the approach of the latest bat research study conducted by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin, Germany. Based on isotope analyses of several kinds of tissue, scientists headed by Christian Voigt successfully defined the preferred habitats of three bat species. For the first time ever, these results shed light on which habitats bats prefer during their annual migrations.

Males that stay at home are not second-class males but can breed as successfully as their more adventurous competitors that leave home, a new long-term study on spotted hyenas shows. The results from a research team of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin, Germany were published in the open accessjournal Science Advances.

Berlin-based scientists have sequenced the complete genome of all five identified strains of the gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV). The scientists were able to prove that selection has shaped parts of the genome of this group of viruses. This is likely as a consequence of selective pressure from the host immune systems that the viruses face. GALVs are the causative agents of hematopoietic neoplasms such as leukemia and thus far have been isolated exclusively from captive primates. However GALV is used in biomedical research as vector for cancer therapy. Therefore, the sequencing of the full genomes and understanding their evolution should help to enhance their utility as viral vectors. The findings were published in the scientific magazine “Journal of Virology”.

Bad Liebenwerda, Germany - Using molecular genetic tools, scientists have demonstrated the existence of a grandchildren’s generation of capercaillies in the south of Brandenburg in East Germany. A pilot conservation project reintroduced these endangered birds to the German nature reserves “Niederlausitzer Heidelandschaft” and “Niederlausitzer Landrücken” as recently as 2012. The founder population was wild caught in Sweden and then transferred to Brandenburg.