Charlotte Ducotterd

• PhD in Life Science
• Scientific collaborator at info fauna

Camera traps are widely used for terrestrial wildlife monitoring but remain underutilized for aquatic species due to inherent challenges in freshwater environments. Freshwater turtles, particularly the critically endangered Swinhoe’s softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), are notoriously difficult to observe in the wild. Here, we present a novel floa...

The snake communities in Asian tropical forests are relatively unknown, with most studies focusing on species lists. We investigated species composition, relative abundance, and community ecology of snakes in a mature secondary hilly forest area in the Quan Son District, northern Vietnam. To our knowledge, it is one of the few field investigations...

High‐throughput sequencing has become an accurate method for the identification of species present in soil, water, faeces, gut or stomach contents. However, information at the species level is limited due to the choice of short barcodes and based on the idea that DNA is too degraded to allow longer sequences to be amplified. We have therefore devel...

Almost all Asian turtle species are considered threatened by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). We investigated the turtle fauna and their distribution in hilly forests in northern Vietnam (Tam Thanh commune, Quan Son district) during two consecutive periods (12th to 23th May, 12th to 24th August 2019). These forests are of the Subtropical Moist...

Molecular technologies, such as metabarcoding, have become powerful tools for conservation purposes. Here, we present a non-invasive study analyzing the diet of one population of European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis) during its whole activity period and of four other populations during the same period, based on faecal sample, and using for the fi...

Very little is known of the ecology and distribution of Vietnamese tortoises and freshwater turtles, even though Vietnam is one of the world’s hotspots of chelonian diversity and, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), almost all its species are threatened. We report the diversity of chelonians for two distinct...

Most of the extraordinary biodiversity richness of SouthEast Asian countries is concentrated in the national parks and other Protected Areas, with species-rich turtle communities surviving mostly in these reserves where their natural habitats are better preserved. However, very few studies have documented the turtle species richness of the various...

According to the IUCN, Southeast Asia is the area of the world with the highest number of threatened turtle species. The current status of chelonians is particularly catastrophic in Vietnam. However, there is still a lack of field data to unambiguously support this fact for a few species. To better understand the freshwater turtle diversity and eve...

Nowadays, Laos remains one of the scientifically least known countries of Asia in terms of herpetological knowledge. Here, we evaluate composition of species in freshwater ecosystems (main river courses) and terrestrial ecosystems (forests) in two distinct regions using Visual Encounter Surveys along designed transects, examination of fishers’ catc...

Rafetus swinhoei is a giant freshwater turtle (>160 kg) and is the rarest turtle species in 30 the world, with just two individuals surviving in Vietnam and China (only one in the wild). Being on the brink of extinction, it is an absolute priority to search for additional individuals in the wild, and for new areas of potential presence. Here we ana...

Rafetus swinhoei is the world's most threatened turtle with only two known specimens remaining, with high probability both males. The species is therefore on the brink of extinction and discovering new individuals in the wild is crucial for the survival of the entire species. Despite the almost-extinct status, field research aimed at locating new i...

Knowledge of feeding strategy and food preferences is one of the milestones of the natural history of a species and is essential to optimise conservation programs. The European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis, L. 1758) is the only freshwater turtle living in Switzerland and ranked as critically endangered on the Swiss Red List. Its diet is still uncl...