Effects of inbreeding on individual fitness are of long-standing interest in evolutionary biology and conservation studies. Since estimation of the inbreeding coefficient of a given individual is often impossible in wild populations, some authors have attempted to demonstrate inbreeding depression in such populations by correlating the multi-locus marker heterozygosity of individuals with a tra...

BACKGROUND Lévy flights are random walks, the step lengths of which come from probability distributions with heavy power-law tails, such that clusters of short steps are connected by rare long steps. Lévy walks maximise search efficiency of mobile foragers. Recently, several studies raised some concerns about the reliability of the statistical analysis used in previous analyses. Further, it is ...

The study was conducted in 2012-2013 on 75 fecal samples of red deer from the Lower Silesian Wilderness which were examined to determine the prevalence of Fascioloides magna in the game population. Finding liver fluke eggs in a single sample which were larger in size than Fasciola hepatica eggs indicated that further molecular analysis was necessarily. The partial sequence (116 bp long) of ITS-...

From January 2004 to July 2007, 2455 sera were collected from domestic and wild animals living in central Italy and tested by indirect immunofluorescence assay to detect antibodies against Anaplasma phagocytophilum. Considering sera with 1:40 antibody titers as positive, 336 (13.68%) animals scored positive. The percentages of seropositivity were: 46.26% (31/67) in fallow deer, 46.15% (24/52) i...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) can infect not only human but also several animals. This study has been conducted to evaluate the comprehensive anti-HEV seroprevalence in zoo animals in Korea. Anti-HEV antibodies were identified in 14 of 64 zoo animal species. HEV antibodies were detected for the first time in Eurasian Lynx, Setland Pony, Fallow Deer, Ezo Sika, Formosa Deer, East Wapitis, Barasingha, C...

One of the major problems in serodiagnosis in wild animals is unavailability of specific antiglobulin conjugate. Our study focuses on validation of Protein A/G dependent ELISA in game animals like deer and mouflons as well as in hunting dogs. Binding ability of Protein A/G-conjugate to antibodies was the highest in dogs followed by fallow deer and mouflons. Three different whole cell Borrelia a...

A population of 110 adult fallow deer kept in an enclosure under very intensive conditions (31.4 deer/ha) was observed for 12 h/d (from 0800 to 2000) for 17 d during the birth season in order to study social and feeding behavior under intensive management. Observations were carried out by a scan sampling technique. The feeding activity of all the deer that were not hidden behind trees or other ...

The control of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is at a critical point in the last stage of eradication in livestock. Wildlife species recently have emerged infected with TB in Europe, particularly ungulates in the Iberian Peninsula. Epidemiological information regarding TB in wild ungulates including affected species, prevalence, associated risk factors and appropriate diagnostic methods need to be o...