In December 2000, an infectious disease spread through a captive breeding group of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in Tanzania, killing 49 of 52 animals within 2 months. The causative agent was identified as Canine distemper virus (CDV) by means of histologic examination, virus isolation, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis, and nucleotide sequencing. This report emphasiz...

Determining the 'dynamic biogeography' of range collapse in threatened species is essential for effective conservation, but reconstruction of spatio-temporal patterns of population vulnerability and resilience can require use of non-standard ecological data such as historical archives. Père David's deer or milu, one of the few living mammal species that has become extinct in the wild, is histor...

The removal of eggs or chicks from wild populations to create captive populations, reinforce free-ranging populations or reintroduce species into the wild is a restoration tool that requires an assessment of potential detrimental effects upon the donor population. This is an absolute prerequisite when wild donor populations are scarce and small. Here, we forecast the population trend of the lar...

The Galápagos giant tortoise is an icon of the unique, endemic biodiversity of Galápagos, but little is known of its parasitic fauna. We assessed the diversity of parasitic nematode communities and their spatial distributions within four wild tortoise populations comprising three species across three Galápagos islands, and consider their implication for Galápagos tortoise conservation programme...

Glucosinolate accumulation and expression of glucosinolate biosynthetic genes were studied in response to four herbivores in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) wild-type (Columbia) and mutant lines affected in defense signaling. Herbivory on wild-type plants led to increased aliphatic glucosinolate content for three of four herbivores tested, the aphid generalist Myzus persicae (Sulzer), the aphid speci...

Chronic gastritis causes significant morbidity and mortality in captive cheetahs but is rare in wild cheetahs despite colonization by abundant spiral bacteria. This research aimed to identify the Helicobacter species that were associated with gastritis in captive cheetahs but are apparently commensal in wild cheetahs. Helicobacter species were characterized by PCR amplification and sequencing o...

In December 2000, an infectious disease spread through a captive breeding group of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in Tanzania, killing 49 of 52 animals within 2 months. The causative agent was identified as Canine distemper virus (CDV) by means of histologic examination, virus isolation, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis, and nucleotide sequencing. This report emphasiz...

Clinical disease caused by feline herpesvirus type-1 in wild felid species is similar to that in domestic cats. Herpesviruses are endemic in free-ranging lions in South Africa but actual clinical disease due to them has not been reported in free-ranging felids. The first reports of feline herpesvirus infection associated with clinical disease in wild felids came from Australia and the USA in 19...