Journal of Wildlife and Biodiversity
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Winter 2020

The history within South Africa of white colonial land dispossession can be traced back to the expansion of the Dutch colonial settlements within the Cape. Land and livestock dispossession resulted in many frequent wars against the native peoples and the colonial settlers. With indigenous peoples limited to regions of the country, and the establishment of national parks and large game reserves, many people were restricted to their ability to successfully access natural land resources, and this today creates a conflict between different levels within the community forcing those in impoverished regions to seek resources from South Africa’s national parks creating a cause for illegal wildlife poaching.

In this paper, the results of the bird counting during the period of 1998-2017 in High-mountains of Daghestan have been presented. The species composition and ecological structure of the avifauna from the study area have been described for the first time. Using cluster analysis I found that the avifauna patterns of the most key sites have similar features. In these areas, high heterogeneity of biotopes and faunal diversity can be seen which formed under the conditions of sufficient moisture. Data showed that high-grass meadows in the south-eastern highlands are used by some species as a substitute of the forest habitats, typical for the forested central and north-western parts of the high-mountainous province.

This investigation was conducted in Doroudzan Dam located in Fars province from winter 2017 to summer 2018. The fish specimens were caught using monofilament gillnet with 20, 70, 100 and 120 mm mesh sizes. Overall, 283 fish specimens belong to the Cyprinidae (7 species) and Mugilidae families (1 species) were caught which were included: Cyprinus carpio, Carassius gibelio, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, Alburnus mossulensis, Capoeta damascina, Carasobarbus luteus and Planiliza abu. C. carpio and P. abu were dominant species during sampling seasons.The highest range of total length and weight belonged to H. nobilis (Length range: 52.8-102.6 cm; Weight range: 2811.5-20628.9 g) and the lowest ranges belonged to A. mossulensis (Length range: 8.6-15.1 cm; Weight range: 5.05-29.4 g) and P. abu (Length range: 8.3-19.6 cm; Weight range: 4.52-59.48 g). The highest amounts of the Shannon-Wiener and Simpson indices were observed in spring (2.413) and winter (0.795), respectively. PCA result showed that C. carpio and P. abu were the most effective species that caused the changes in the seasonal fish abundance and diversity. Also, the most amounts of seasonal similarity were between summer and spring (J= 0.625; S= 0.729) and the lowest amounts were between summer and winter (J= 0.375; S= 0.545).

The present study evaluates the genetic diversity of black francolin (Francolinus francolinus asiae) in Uttarakhand on the basis of microsatellite loci. For this purpose, we examined five populations from three geographical zones of Uttarakhand, Western Himalaya. Microsatellite markers were polymorphic with number of alleles per locus ranging from 4-21, effective number of alleles per locus from 1.34 to 4.93, the Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) value ranged from 0.22 to 0.85. The averaged observed heterozygosity across all loci were Ho=0.320.12 and averaged expected heterozygosity He=0.510.06 respectively. The genetic structure showed that there were two genetically distinct clusters. The Lesser Himalayan and Himalayan foothill population forming a single cluster and population of Tarai region forming another cluster. The pairwise FST results showed a sizeable genetic difference between the population of higher and lower altitude. The AMOVA showed that higher levels of variation were observed among individual within populations (64.36%) and lower differentiation observed among populations (2.99%). Overall the populations of black francolin were genetically variable with high adaptive potential in Uttarakhand, Western Himalaya.

Despite being one of the most abundant spider families in the world, wolf/lycosid spiders are poorly studied in the Philippines. In this study, we determined the faunistic diversity and distribution of lycosid spiders from nine sampling sites in Western and Northern Mindanao. An opportunistic sampling method was used to collect samples. Non-parametric estimators and GIS mapping were utilized in this study to determine richness (genus level) and distribution. Results showed that the accumulation curves of the observed richness and non-parametric estimators did not reach an asymptotic value suggesting that the true richness of the sampling areas is much higher than the estimated values. Six genera were documented in which one genus is a new Mindanao record and another one is new to the Philippines. Distribution results showed that fewer specimens are found in forested areas and sampled specimens usually clumped in agroecosystems near water bodies. Generally, Shannon-Weiner values were found to be very low (H’= 0 to 1.29) but tend to exhibit higher values (H’= 1.23 to 1.29) in sites with field margins that are located near streams or forest patches. Results indicate the importance of riparian areas and ecotones for the diversity of wolf spiders.

Seagrass meadows and the associated invertebrate fauna, are important ecological biodiversity indicators for coastal marine environments. Increasing anthropogenic stress and climate change, have made these habitats priority targets for monitoring and conservation, however, the relevant information is poor for the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The present study aims at describing decapod assemblages associated with four shallow Cymodocea nodosa beds from the northern Aegean Sea (Greece). Physicochemical parameters were measured, and water samples were collected for nutrient and chlorophyll–a analyses. For the morphological study of C. nodosa, three 25 x 25 cm quadrates per site were randomly sampled. Biometric (leaf length and width, total leaf length) and structural (shoot density, above and below ground biomass and above/below ground biomass, Leaf Area Index-LAI and Leaf Area-LA) parameters were assessed, and the CymoSkew index was calculated. Finally, decapods were collected by means of a beach seine (mesh size of 2 mm), taxonomically identified and sexed with stereoscopic inspection. All examined sites were oligotrophic and exhibited similar environmental quality.The western C. nodosa meadows had a high ecological status (CymoSkew CV=1.70 and CymoSkew NP=1.86). A clear correlation between seagrass morphometry and nutrient concentrations was detected, with the smallest shoot size and higher densities recorded in the less impacted areas. In total, 606 crustacean decapod specimens belonging to 14 species and eight families were collected. Hippolyte sapphica forma A (Hippolytidae) was the dominant species. Finally, higher decapod species abundance and richness were recorded in the western stations, which host meadows of high ecological quality status.

Oak forests of Zagros mountainous ridge, provide important ecosystem services that play a major role in local communities' survival. Nearly all communities in the vicinity of these valuable forested areas are dependent on the ecosystem services from different views like water, fuel, and husbandry. Different factors like human activities, miss management, climate change, Oak roller moth population outbreak threat these valuable ecosystems survival and sustaining. To document the effect of these factors on the canopy covers change during recent years, we used ASTER satellite data and NDVI algorithm to document Kamfirouze oak forests canopy cover changes. Our analysis indicates that in spite of an increase in planted lands (29.35%) in recent decades, the total area of these forests decreased by 15.1 percent and bare lands area has been decreased by up to 7.5% as well. Decreasing trend of the forest canopy cover can be related to the land-use change as the most important factor as well as other factors like illegal timber consumption in the area. The overall finding of this project confirms a more than 10 percent decrease in recent years.

Despite a plethora of policies that address issues of conservation of nature’s resources, biodiversity continues to face a series of threats in Nigeria. The study aimed at a critical appraisal of the status of biodiversity conservation and utilization pattern in Nigeria. The review was carried out using published materials and personal interactions with knowledgeable individuals. Poverty, population growth, invasive alien species, habitat fragmentation were identified as core factors depleting biodiversity in Nigeria. Although no reliable record yet exists for assessing the rate of biodiversity loss in Nigeria, substantial evidence shows that biodiversity is being lost at a disturbing rate. The IUCN Red list assessment reports that 141 native animal and 168 native plant species of Nigeria are currently classified in different threat categories. With these assessments been carried out on the global level, we hypothesized that such global assessment might be biased based on the various identified peculiar threats faced by different species in their local environment.  To properly monitor and reduce the current state of biodiversity, reliable data on biodiversity is necessary. The development of a red List for Nigerian flora and fauna is recommended.