Dário Hipólito

University of Aveiro | UA · Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM)

Introduction: Intestinal microeukaryote parasites are major contributors to the burden of diarrhoea in humans and domestic animals, but their epidemiology in wildlife is not fully understood. We investigated the frequency, genetic diversity and zoonotic potential of protists of animal and public health significance in free-ranging grey wolf (Canis...

The ongoing increase in wild boar populations across Europe has fostered human-wildlife conflicts, including the transmission of emerging pathogens with zoonotic importance. Blastocystis is a ubiquitous, faecal-oral transmitted protist that can cause gastrointestinal illnesses and is observed in humans and animals worldwide. The role of wildlife in...

Wildlife monitoring is key for the effective management of natural resources. Hunting-based data (e.g., hunting bag statistics) is an important source of information to overcome the financial constraints imposed to long-term monitoring. Here, taking advantage of three decades (1989–2022) of hunting bag statistics of wild mammals in Portugal, we pre...

Context Large carnivores have faced severe extinction pressures throughout Europe during the last centuries, where human-induced disturbances reached unprecedented levels. In the late twentieth century, the Cantabrian brown bear population was on the verge of extinction, due to poaching. Yet, the end of the last century was a turning point for this...

The ongoing increase of wild boar populations across Europe has fostered human-wildlife conflicts, including the transmission of emerging pathogens with zoonotic importance. Blastocystis is a ubiquitous, faecal-oral transmitted protist that can cause gastrointestinal illnesses and is observed in humans and animals worldwide. The role of wildlife in...

Gray wolves Canis lupus comprise one of the most widely distributed carnivore species on the planet, but they face myriad environmental and anthropogenic pressures. Previous research suggests that wolves adjust their time‐ and space‐use seasonally to mitigate risks from humans, conspecifics, and other predators while maximizing their hunting and re...

Blastocystis is a ubiquitous intestinal protist in humans and animals worldwide. The traditional livestock free-roaming raising system in rural communities increases the risk of infection with contact with a wider range of pathogens transmitted via the faecal-oral route associated with that wildlife-livestock-human interface. However, no studies ha...

La creciente expansión y sobreabundancia de las poblaciones de jabalíes en toda Europa han aumentado los conflictos entre humanos y estos animales de vida libre, incluyendo la transmisión de patógenos emergentes de relevancia zoonósica. Blastocystis (Stramenopile) es un protista ubicuo de transmisión fecal-oral que puede causar enfermedad gastroint...

Enteric protozoan parasites Giardia duodenalis, Cryptosporidium spp., and, to a lesser extent, the ciliate Balantioides coli are responsible for severe human and animal intestinal disorders globally. However, limited information is available on the occurrence and epidemiology of these parasites in domestic, but especially wild species in Portugal....

Trophic rewilding is considered a conservation measure that aims to restore the trophic interactions. In north‐central Portugal, the Iberian wolf ( Canis lupus signatus ) is endangered mainly due to human persecution, triggered by wolf depredation on livestock. Several initiatives have occurred in this area to increase wolf wild prey availability b...

Livestock depredation is a common cause of human-carnivore conflicts. In Portugal, free-ranging dogs are increasingly abundant and overlap endangered Iberian wolf territories, with reports of livestock depredation. However, the lack of awareness about dogs’ possible role as predators leads to bias against wolves in cases of damages. Our goal was to...

The phylum Microsporidia encompasses a diverse group of obligate, intracellular, and spore-forming organisms able to infect a wide range of animal hosts. Among them, Enterocytozoon bieneusi is the most frequently reported species in humans and animals. Despite the role of wildlife as reservoirs of zoonotic pathogens, there are only a few studies do...

The phylum Microsporidia encompasses a diverse group of obligate, intracellular, and spore-forming organisms able to infect a wide range of animal hosts. Among them, Enterocytozoon bieneusi is the most frequently reported species in humans and animals. Little is known about the presence and epidemiology of E. bieneusi in wildlife. We investigated E...

At the end of the nineteenth century, massive population declines were observed in carnivores due to the emergence of infectious diseases. This study aims to investigate, by means of coprological analysis, the prevalence and intensity of the parasites that infect the endangered Iberian wolf Canis lupus signatus and two mesocarnivores (the red fox V...

The WHO considers that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is among the ten greatest global public health risks of the 21st century. The expansion of human populations and anthropogenically related activities, accompanied by the fragmentation of natural habitats, has resulted in increased human–wildlife interaction. Natural ecosystems are therefore subj...

Humans are responsible for over a quarter of all wildlife mortality events across the globe. The pressure this puts on wildlife populations contributes to the decline of many at-risk species. To minimize human-caused mortality and reverse population declines in species across the world, we first need to know where these events are happening or like...

A data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in Portugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with ~26% of all species being included in the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associated with habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mammals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion for marine mammals. Mammals play a key role in...

Species identification of non-invasively collected samples using molecular genetics tools has become an important tool in ecological research. For decades, scat-based ecological studies were almost exclusively rooted in morphological identification of scats, within local context, in the field. However, this approach raised a controversial debate, d...

• The invasive yellow‐legged hornet (Vespa velutina) was first detected in mainland Portugal in September 2011. The lack of information regarding the processes of species spread has hampered the development of adequate measures to mitigate the potential impact of this invasive predator. • Crowdsourced data, i.e., information opportunistically repor...

Human–bear conflicts resulting from livestock depredation and crop use are a common threat to the brown bear Ursus arctos throughout its range. Understanding these conflicts requires the recording and categorization of incidents, assessment of their geographical distribution and frequency, and documentation of the financial costs and the presence o...

Habitat loss, due to landscape changes induced by human activities, is considered one of the main drivers of biodiversity decline. Thus, understanding how these changes affect top trophic-level species is essential to develop effective conservation strategy measures to overcome this problem. Mesocarnivores, as higher trophic-level species with cruc...

La distribución de especies se ve afectada en todo el mundo por los cambios inducidos por el hombre a escalas de tiempo reducidas, particularmente asociadas con los cambios en el uso del suelo. A partir de estas consideraciones y con la información obtenida en el I Sondeo Ibérico de Tejoneras, se procedió a identificar los principales usos del suel...

Human-Induced Rapid Environmental Change (HIREC), particularly climate change and habitat conversion, affects species distributions worldwide. Here, we aimed to (i) assess the factors that determine range patterns of European badger (Meles meles) at the southwestern edge of their distribution and (ii) forecast the possible impacts of future climate...

European badgers (Meles meles) are considered central-place foragers, whose spatial ecology is predominantly determined by sett location. Many studies have assessed the factors determining sett site selection throughout this species’ range, but these have often been geographically limited and have primarily identified locally dependent factors. To...

Agro-silvo-pastoral management practices are the most common promoters of the spatial heterogeneity observed in the Mediterranean landscapes, including Iberian ‘montados’. In these ecosystems, we have witnessed changes in management practices along the years. These changes in the ecosystem structure enhanced the wildlife’s need to adapt to changes...

Mediterranean native ecosystems have been influenced by human activities for millennia and nowadays some of these landscapes are highly dependent on anthropic management actions, which are also responsible for the maintenance of high biodiversity and conservation values. Among the activities that shaped western Mediterranean areas, agriculture, cat...

Mediterranean landscapes in Europe are characterised by a mixed matrix of agriculture, agro-forestry or cattle-farming areas, which have influenced native communities for centuries. Recently, new changes were imposed on these agro-forestry landscapes due to novel management options that provide new challenges for wildlife. From a conservation persp...

Agro-silvo-pastoral management practices are the most common promoters of the spatial heterogeneity observed in the Mediterranean landscapes, including ‘montados’. Although these ecosystems have suffered a prolonged and profound impact, a result of these human activities, we have witnessed an intensification or abandonment of these areas due to cha...