Current press releases

Over the millennia people have repeatedly changed the coat patterns and colours of domestic animals through selective breeding. In particular, leopard complex spotting in horses has been repeatedly a favourite pattern since the beginning of domestication about 5500 years ago, as an international team of scientists has now been able to demonstrate. The study emphasises how changing fashions and repeated cross-breeding of wild and domestic horses have substantially enhanced the genetic diversity of the domestic horse. The results of the study have just been published in the renowned scientific journal Philosophical Transactions B of the Royal Society.

Scientists from the IZW led by Alex Greenwood publish a simple way to retrieve small genomes from a mix of various organisms.

Scientists from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) can give the all-clear: in a recent study they showed that cheetahs primarily prefer wildlife on their menu. The cheetah is a vulnerable species that only exists on Namibia’s commercial farmland in large populations. Here, local farmers see cheetahs as a potential threat for their cattle.

Scientists found a way to reduce the application of antibiotics in pig breeding by using antimicrobial peptides. The results of the study have just been published in the scientific online-journal PLOS ONE.

The worldwide largest funnel trap designed for the purpose of studying migratory bats will opened at the ornithological field station in Pape, Latvia, on August 19, 2014. At the same time, an ambitious international research project on the biology of migratory bats will be started. The project is expected to provide some key answers to many unsolved questions concerning flight paths, hibernation areas and metabolism of these ecologically valuable mammals.

Wind turbines are responsible for the death of numerous bats. In a recent study, scientists determined the origin of these animals: they do not only come from local areas but many had been already on a long migratory journey. Germany therefore bears responsibility not only for the protection of native bat populations, but also for the populations from other countries.