Hunted wild animals (i.e., bushmeat) are a main source of protein for many rural populations in the tropics, and the unsustainable harvest of these animals puts both human food security and ecosystem functioning at risk. To understand the correlates of bushmeat consumption, we surveyed 1219 households in 121 rural villages near three newly established national parks in Gabon. Through the surveys we gathered information on bush...

Theory predicts that the impact of gene flow on the genetic structure of populations in patchy habitats depends on its scale and the demographic attributes of demes (e.g. local colony sizes and timing of reproduction), but empirical evidence is scarce. We inferred the impact of gene flow on genetic structure among populations of water voles Arvicola terrestris that differed in average colony sizes, population turnover and degr...

Aims We examine the relationships between the distribution of British ground beetle species and climatic and altitude variables with a view to developing models for evaluating the impact of climate change. Location Data from 1684 10‐km squares in Britain were used to model species–climate/altitude relationships. A validation data set was composed of data from 326 British 10‐km squares not used in the model data set. Methods Th...

Unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food is often a more immediate and significant threat to the conservation of biological diversity in tropical forests than deforestation. Why people eat wildlife is debated. Some may eat bushmeat because they can afford it; others may eat it because it is familiar, traditional, confers prestige, tastes good, or adds variety. We completed a survey of 1208 rural and urban households in Gabon...

Groundwater is often a major component of lake water and chemical balances. Alteration in catchment subsurface water balances through land‐use change and pumping can affect lake biogeochemical cycles through changes in groundwater flow rates. We present a modern (~200 yr) sediment isotope record ( δ 18 O carb , δ 13 C carb , and δ 13 C org ) of changes to the water and carbon budget of Blue Lake, which is situated in karstic l...

Estimating the rate and scale of dispersal is essential for predicting the dynamics of fragmented populations, yet empirical estimates are typically imprecise and often negatively biased. We maximized detection of dispersal events between small, subdivided populations of water voles ( Arvicola terrestris ) using a novel method that combined direct capture–mark–recapture with microsatellite genotyping to identify parents and of...

Mandrills ( Mandrillus sphinx ) are forest primates indigenous to western central Africa. Phylogenetic analysis of 267 base pairs (bp) of the cytochrome b gene from 53 mandrills of known and 17 of unknown provenance revealed two phylogeographical groups, with haplotypes differentiated by 2.6% comprising seven synonymous transitions. The distribution of the haplotypes suggests that the Ogooué River, Gabon, which bisects their r...