Jacqueline M Bishop

Jacqueline M Bishop
University of Cape Town | UCT · Department of Biological Sciences

PhD

About

88
Publications
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Publications

Publications (88)
Article
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Detectability of different colour morphs under varying light conditions has been proposed as an important driver in the maintenance of colour polymorphism via disruptive selection. To date, no studies have tested whether different morphs have selective advantages under differing light conditions. We tested this hypothesis in the black sparrowhawk,...
Article
Modern baboons evolved as a distinct lineage prior to 2.5 Mya. Previous scenarios of diversification within this lineage have assessed the phylogenetic position of the chacma baboon of southern Africa relative to other baboons, but have not examined variation within this taxon. Here we provide a phylogenetic analysis of lineage diversity across the...
Article
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Small populations are vulnerable to the consequences of breeding within closed groups as the loss of genetic variability can lead to inbreeding depression. Here, we use microsatellite genotypes to assess variability and parentage within a small, managed population of southern white rhinoceros in northern Namibia. Tissue samples gathered from either...
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Across heterogeneous environments selection and gene flow interact to influence the rate and extent of adaptive trait evolution. This complex relationship is further influenced by the rarely considered role of phenotypic plasticity in the evolution of adaptive population variation. Plasticity can be adaptive if it promotes colonization and survival...
Article
Aim Isolation by distance ( IBD ) analyses are an effective tool for determining genetic connectivity among populations, providing a basis for estimating dispersal and thus contributing to spatial biodiversity planning. Here, we use an IBD approach to determine patterns of connectivity to infer dispersal distances for a phylogenetically diverse ran...
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Papillomaviruses (PV) infect epithelial cells and can cause hyperplastic or neoplastic lesions. In felids, most described PVs are from domestic cats (Felis catus; n = 7 types), with one type identified in each of the five wild felid species studied to date (Panthera uncia, Puma concolor, Leopardus wiedii, Panthera leo persica and Lynx rufus). PVs f...
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Small island populations are vulnerable to genetic decline via demographic and environmental stochasticity. In the absence of immigration, founder effects, inbreeding and genetic drift are likely to contribute to local extinction risk. Management actions may also have a greater impact on small, closed populations. The demographic and social charact...
Article
Wildlife populations are becoming increasingly fragmented by anthropogenic development. Small and isolated populations often face an elevated risk of extinction, in part due to inbreeding depression. Here, we examine the genomic consequences of urbanization in a caracal ( Caracal caracal ) population that has become isolated in the Cape Peninsula r...
Preprint
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Knowledge of behaviors surrounding reproduction in wild species is essential to the development of effective management and conservation strategies. Many carnivores use dens to increase the safety and survival of their neonatal young while females shift to central-place foraging to meet the energetic demands of raising young. Caracals ( Caracal car...
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The use of marine subsidies by terrestrial predators can facilitate substantial transfer of nutrients between marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Marine resource subsidies may have profound effects on predator ecology, influencing population and niche dynamics. Expanding niches of top consumers can impact ecosystem resilience and interspecific inter...
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Urbanisation critically alters wildlife habitat and resource distribution, leading to shifts in trophic dynamics. The loss of apex predators in human-transformed landscapes can result in changes in the ecological roles of the remaining mesocarnivores. Decreased top–down control together with increased bottom–up forcing through greater availability...
Preprint
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Wildlife populations are becoming increasingly fragmented by anthropogenic development. Such small and isolated populations often face an elevated risk of extinction, in part due to inbreeding depression. Here, we examine the genomic consequences of urbanization in a caracal ( Caracal caracal ) population that has become isolated in the Cape Penins...
Article
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Human activities increasingly challenge wild animal populations by disrupting ecological connectivity and population persistence. Yet, human-modified habitats can provide resources, resulting in selection of disturbed areas by generalist species. To investigate spatial and temporal responses of a generalist carnivore to human disturbance, we invest...
Article
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South Africa has a large captive lion (Panthera leo) sector, but detailed knowledge on the origin of individuals and any potential genetic value to conservation targets is lacking. In 2021, the South African government committed to closing the sector and have since appointed a Ministerial Lion Task Team (2022) to initiate this process. Some have su...
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Urbanisation and associated anthropogenic activities release large quantities of toxic metals and metalloids into the environment, where they may bioaccumulate and threaten both wildlife and human health. In highly transformed landscapes, terrestrial carnivores may be at increased risk of exposure through biomagnification. We quantified metallic el...
Article
Leopard, Panthera pardus, populations have been substantially affected by range contractions and fragmentation. Declining populations with less connectivity have a higher probability of reduced genetic diversity which may ultimately impact resilience to novel threats. Monitoring genetic diversity is thus an important component of the conservation o...
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Group-living animals that live in complex social systems require effective modes of communication to maintain social cohesion, and several acoustic, olfactory and visual signaling systems have been described. Individuals need to discriminate between in- and out-group odour to both avoid inbreeding and to identify recipients for reciprocal behaviour...
Article
Wildlife around cities bioaccumulate multiple harmful environmental pollutants associated with human activities. Exposure severity can vary based on foraging behaviour and habitat use, which can be examined to elucidate exposure pathways. Carnivores can play vital roles in ecosystem stability but are particularly vulnerable to bioaccumulation of po...
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Concerns have been raised about attribution of species range shifts to anthropogenic climate change. Species paleo-range projections are emerging as a means to broaden understanding of range shifts and could be applied to assist in attribution. Apparent recent range contraction in the Quiver Tree (Aloidendron dichotomum (Masson) Klopper and Gideon...
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As natural habitat is progressively transformed, effective wildlife conservation relies on understanding the phenotypic traits that allow select species to persist outside of protected areas. Through behavioural flexibility such species may trade off abundant resources with risks, both real and perceived. As highly adaptable mesocarnivores, caracal...
Article
Anellovirus infections are highly prevalent in mammals but prior to this study only a handful of anellovirus genomes had been identified in members of the Felidae family. Here characterise anelloviruses in pumas (Puma concolor), bobcats (Lynx rufus), Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), caracals (Caracal caracal) and domestic cats (Felis catus). The comp...
Article
Current management models for many endangered species focus primarily on demographic recovery, often ignoring their intrinsic ecological requirements. Across the protected area network of southern Africa, most southern white rhinoceros are managed in populations of less than 50 individuals, experiencing restricted dispersal opportunities, and limit...
Article
Despite the importance of disease as a wildlife management challenge in South Africa, baseline data on the epidemiology of pathogens occurring in free-ranging species has received little attention to date. Black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) are a wide-ranging, abundant carnivore with substantial economic importance due to their role in livestoc...
Preprint
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Background: Wildlife populations are increasingly challenged by human activities that disrupt landscape connectivity and animal movement, and thus population dynamics and persistence. Yet modified habitats may provide resource subsidies for generalist species resulting in increased selection of disturbed areas. Understanding how species adjust thei...
Preprint
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Wildlife populations are increasingly challenged by human activities that disrupt landscape connectivity, animal movement, population dynamics and population persistence. Yet modified habitats may provide resource subsidies for generalist species resulting in increased selection of disturbed areas. Understanding how species adjust their space use a...
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Despite having protected status, poaching for the illegal trade and traditional use remains a primary threat to leopards (Panthera pardus) across southern Africa. Addressing this threat is challenging, not only because it is difficult to uncover and monitor illicit behavior, but because law enforcement and alternative intervention strategies need t...
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Urbanisation radically changes habitats and alters available resources. Populations of large, highly mobile species are often extirpated at the urban-wildland interface, while species like mesocarnivores may thrive by capitalising on changes in prey abundance. We investigated the diet of the caracal (Caracal caracal), a medium-sized felid inhabitin...
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The Publisher would like to correct the introduced formatting errors on the caption of Figure 1 and in the data in Table 2.
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Background: Wild carnivores living alongside humans and domestic animals are vulnerable to changes in the infectious disease dynamics in their populations. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence and diversity of selected tick-borne pathogens (TBPs) of veterinary and/or zoonotic concern in wild populations of caracals (Caracal cara...
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Anthropogenic mortality of wildlife is typically inferred from measures of the absolute decline in population numbers. However, increasing evidence suggests that indirect demographic effects including changes to the age, sex, and social structure of populations, as well as the behavior of survivors, can profoundly impact population health and viabi...
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We investigated Toxoplasmosis gondii antibody seroprevalence in free-ranging caracals (Caracal caracal) in Cape Town, South Africa, from 2014 to 2017. Seropositivity was 83% (24/ 29), which is substantially higher than that detected in sympatric feral domestic cat (Felis catus) populations. The impact of this pathogen on local human and wildlife co...
Article
The low vagility of the southern African Notonemouridae (stoneflies, Plecoptera), and their restriction to temperate montane refugia, make them a useful model for examining the evolution and biogeography of the rich palaeogenic fauna of the region. Here we use maximum parsimony tree reconstruction based on morphological characters and a partial COI...
Article
The majority of metal hyperaccumulating plants accumulate nickel, yet the molecular basis of Ni hyperaccumulation is not well understood. We chose Senecio coronatus to investigate this phenomenon as this species displays marked variation in shoot Ni content across ultramafic outcrops in the Barberton Greenstone Belt (South Africa), thus allowing an...
Poster
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Poster presentation on early, preliminary data on diet of caracals on the Cape Peninsula, Cape Town, South Africa
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Background: The Cape horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus capensis, is endemic to the Cape region of South Africa. Coalescent analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence data suggests extensive historical gene flow between populations despite strong geographic variation of their echolocation call phenotype. Nevertheless the fine-scale genetic structure and evolu...
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Plio-Pleistocene environmental change influenced the evolutionary history of many animal lineages in Africa, highlighting key roles for both climate and tectonics in the evolution of Africa's faunal diversity. Here, we explore diversification in the southern African chacma baboon Papio ursinus sensu lato and reveal a dominant role for increasingly...
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The Olfactory Receptor (OR) superfamily, the largest in the vertebrate genome, is responsible for vertebrate olfaction and is traditionally subdivided into 17 OR families. Recent studies characterising whole-OR subgenomes revealed a 'birth and death' model of evolution for a range of species, however little is known about fine-scale evolutionary dy...
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The real diversity of the Bovidae is not only underestimated, but holds many surprises in its richness of diversity, especially overlooked and misclassified cryptic species. Our argument refutes the recent paper (Heller et al. 2013) condemning Groves & Grubb's (2011) revised taxonomy of the Bovidae as "taxonomic inflation" that is bad for conservat...
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The Cape Dwarf Chameleon, Bradypodion pumilum, is threatened by extensive habitat loss and transformation in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. As a result, the species exists as a collection of populations inhabiting an increasingly fragmented landscape within a critically endangered ecosystem. In this study we monitored microsatellite gen...
Article
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Phenotypes of distantly related species may converge through adaptation to similar habitats and/or because they share biological constraints that limit the phenotypic variants produced. A common theme in bats is the sympatric occurrence of cryptic species that are convergent in morphology but divergent in echolocation frequency, suggesting that ech...
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Unchecked exploitation of wildlife resources is one of the major factors influencing species persistence throughout the world today. A significant consequence of exploitation is the increasing rate at which genetic diversity is lost as populations decline. Recent studies suggest that life history traits affecting population growth, particularly in...
Article
Molecular studies have demonstrated a deep lineage split between the two gorilla species, as well as divisions within these taxa; estimates place this divergence in the mid-Pleistocene, with gene flow continuing until approximately 80,000 years ago. Here, we present analyses of skeletal data indicating the presence of substantial recent gene flow a...