Elena Bersacola

• PhD
• University of Exeter

The African nocturnal primates (galagos, pottos, and angwantibos: suborder Strepsirrhini) are the result of the first major primate radiation event in Africa, and are found in different primate communities spread across the entire sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, they represent an interesting group of taxa to investigate community strategies to avoid inte...

Objectives: Based on vocalization recordings of an unknown galago species, our main objectives were to compare morphology and call structure with known closely-related taxa and describe a new species of galago. Materials and methods: We conducted field surveys in three forest habitats along the escarpment region in western Angola (Kumbira Forest...

Scientific investigations on the mammals of Angola started over 150 years ago, but information remains scarce and scattered, with only one recent published account. Here we provide a synthesis of the mammals of Angola based on a thorough survey of primary and grey literature, as well as recent unpublished records. We present a short history of mamm...

Human-wildlife coexistence is possible when animals can meet their ecological requirements while managing human-induced risks. Understanding how wildlife balance these trade-offs in anthropogenic environments is crucial to develop effective strategies to reduce risks of negative interactions, including bi-directional aggression and disease transmis...

Forest-agricultural mosaics are now considered critical for biodiversity. Within these landscapes, the type of land use surrounding remnant forests influences the ability of arboreal non-flying wildlife to travel, disperse and ultimately survive, making arboreal species disproportionally impacted from habitat change. To inform land management strat...

Shared landscapes in which humans and wildlife coexist, are increasingly recognized as integral to conservation. Fine‐scale data on the distribution and density of threatened wildlife are therefore critical to promote long‐term coexistence. Yet, the spatial complexity of habitat, anthropic threats and animal behaviour in shared landscapes challenge...

The close phylogenetic relationship between humans and nonhuman primates (hereafter primates), coupled with mounting anthropogenic impacts, such as habitat change, wildmeat hunting, pet-keeping, and tourism, increases disease risks for primates and humans by facilitating zoonotic pathogen exchange and altering host-pathogen interactions. Infectious...

The majority of nonhuman primates are found in habitats impacted by humans. Therefore, conservation interventions in anthropogenic landscapes are critical for the long-term survival of primate populations. Due to their intelligence and socioecological flexibility, many primates exhibit behaviours deemed problematic such as crop feeding, property da...

The emergence of infectious diseases, such as COVID‐19, impacts livelihood strategies and conservation tools reliant on human‐wildlife interactions, such as wildlife‐based tourism and research. This is particularly relevant to great ape conservation, as humans and great apes are susceptible to being infected by similar pathogens. Evidence‐based str...

O babuíno da Guiné (Papio papio), que é simultaneamente a espécie de babuínos mais ameaçada e a menos investigada, foi reportado como estando a diminuir na Guiné-Bissau devido à intensa pressão exercida pelas atividades antropogénicas. Es-tes resultados motivaram investigação dirigida à biologia, ecologia, evolução, parasitologia e conservação das...

Agroforest mosaics represent one of the most extensive human-impacted terrestrial systems worldwide and play an increasingly critical role in wildlife conservation. In such dynamic shared landscapes, coexistence can be compromised if people view wildlife as a source of infectious disease. A cross-disciplinary One Health knowledge base can help to i...

Humans are considered as the main host for Mycobacterium leprae1, the aetiological agent of leprosy, but spillover has occurred to other mammals that are now maintenance hosts, such as nine-banded armadillos and red squirrels2,3. Although naturally acquired leprosy has also been described in captive nonhuman primates4–7, the exact origins of infect...

As the COVID‐19 pandemic continues to affect societies across the world, the ongoing economic and social disruptions are likely to present fundamental challenges for current and future biodiversity conservation. We review the literature for outcomes of past major societal, political, economic and zoonotic perturbations on biodiversity conservation,...

Coexistence between humans and wildlife is possible when animals are able to meet their ecological requirements while managing human-induced risks. Other than large carnivores, examination of fine-scale spatiotemporal interactions with humans have rarely been applied to threatened wildlife such as great apes, whose conservation relies on persistenc...

Humans are considered the main host for Mycobacterium leprae , the aetiologic agent of leprosy, but spill-over to other mammals such as nine-banded armadillos and red squirrels occurs. Although naturally acquired leprosy has also been described in captive nonhuman primates, the exact origins of infection remain unclear. Here, we report on leprosy-l...

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2020

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2020

In this thesis I explore how humans and nonhuman primates, including chimpanzees, share the space in a coastal forest-agriculture-village landscape mosaic at Cantanhez National Park (NP), southern Guinea-Bissau (West Africa). I integrate data from arboreal and terrestrial camera traps with habitat surveys, remote sensing and interviews with local p...

Svensson, M., Bersacola, E. & Bearder, S. 2019. Galagoides demidoff ssp. demidoff. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T91966225A91966229.

Svensson, M., Bersacola, E. & Bearder, S. 2019. Galagoides demidoff . The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T40649A17962255.

Large seed dispersers play a key role in maintaining and restoring tree species diversity in tropical forests. These taxa may also represent important food sources for sympatric carnivores. Therefore, their occurrence and population status have implications for the health of the forest and conservation of predators. Here we examined patterns of occ...

Background West African landscapes are largely characterised by complex agroforest mosaics. Although the West African forests are considered a nonhuman primate hotspot, knowledge on the distribution of many species is often lacking and out-of-date. Considering the fast-changing nature of the landscapes in this region, up-to-date information on prim...

List of geographic locations including protected or unprotected areas identified as priority for future primate surveys. Numbers in brackets under the Areas column only refer to protected areas Data source: UNEP - WCMC Protected Planet (2014–2018) Available at: http//:www.protectedplanet.net. 1(Galat, Galat-Luong & Nizinski, 2009) conducted surveys...

Eighteen species of galagos and three species of pottos are currently recognised and in several regions the distributions of these strepsirrhines overlap. Niche partitioning is a key factor in determining community structure as it allows the coexistence of two or more species that rely on limited trophic resources. For this study, we aimed to inves...

Tropical rainforests on Borneo are rapidly shrinking due to human activities and related fires. Monitoring wildlife populations in their remaining habitats is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies. In 2012, we conducted surveys in Balikpapan Bay within the Sungai Wain forest, Indonesia, to estimate the population density of Maroo...

News article for the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group. Available at http://www.pangolinsg.org/2014/06/01/pangolins-in-angolan-bushmeat-markets-2/

Open sale of elephant ivory in Luanda, Angola - Volume 48 Issue 1 - Magdalena S. Svensson, Elena Bersacola, Simon K. Bearder, Vincent Nijman, Michael Mills