Peter GalbuseraRoyal Zoological Society of Antwerp · Centre for Research and Conservation
Peter Galbusera
PhD
About
55
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
October 2014 - October 2016
January 2011 - present
January 2005 - present
Education
October 1988 - June 1992
Publications
Publications (55)
Recent technological advances in the field of genomics offer conservation managers and practitioners new tools to explore
for conservation applications. Many of these tools are well developed and used by other life science fields, while others are
still in development. Considering these technological possibilities, choosing the right tool(s) from t...
Life history theory predicts a trade-off between the quantity and quality of offspring. Short interbirth intervals – the time between successive births – may increase the quantity of offspring but harm offspring quality. In contrast, long interbirth intervals may bolster offspring quality while reducing overall reproductive output. Further research...
Global conservation policy and action have largely neglected protecting and monitoring genetic diversity—one of the three main pillars of biodiversity. Genetic diversity (diversity within species) underlies species’ adaptation and survival, ecosystem resilience, and societal innovation. The low priority given to genetic diversity has largely been d...
Unusually short or long interbirth intervals (IBIs) are associated with increased risks of infant mortality in humans. However, further research is needed to determine the extent to which this relationship holds more broadly among primates. Using Cox proportional hazards models, we examined the effects of atypical IBI on infant survivorship using a...
This research project aims to predict the potential shifts in the distribution of the endangered Golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas) in the Atlantic forests of Brazil, by modelling the species’ climatic suitability under scenarios of future climate change. Through this case study within the framework of the Copernicus Climate Ch...
In many birds and mammals, the size and sex composition of litters can have important downstream effects for individual offspring. Primates are model organisms for questions of cooperation and conflict, but the factors shaping interactions among same-age siblings have been less-studied in primates because most species bear single young. However, ca...
This study evaluated the genetic structure of wild populations of the endangered primate, Leontopithecus chrysomelas. We tested the assumption that populations of L. chrysomelas, given their larger population size and higher degree of habitat continuity, would have higher genetic diversity and less genetic structuring than other lion tamarins. We u...
The high degree of endemism on Sulawesi has previously been suggested to have vicariant origins, dating back to 40 Ma. Recent studies, however, suggest that much of Sulawesi's fauna assembled over the last 15 Myr. Here, we test the hypothesis that more recent uplift of previously submerged portions of land on Sulawesi promoted diversification and t...
The domestic water buffalo is native to the Asian continent but through historical migrations and recent importations, nowadays has a worldwide distribution. The two types of water buffalo, i.e., river and swamp, display distinct morphological and behavioral traits, different karyotypes and also have different purposes and geographical distribution...
The importance of genetic diversity for the assessment and maintenance of biodiversity is widely recognised, although not yet explicitly incorporated into conservation decision making in many European Union Member States. A detailed assessment of 4311 genetic studies relevant for the conservation and management of European species revealed that res...
Breeding programs for endangered species increasingly use molecular genetics to inform their management strategies. Molecular approaches can be useful for investigating relatedness, resolving pedigree uncertainties, and for estimating genetic diversity in captive and wild populations. Genetic data can also be used to evaluate the representation of...
![Figure 2. Giraffidae phylogeny drawn in BEAST v1.7.5 [35], with red...](profile/Peter-Galbusera/publication/263778817/figure/fig6/AS:341815766077455@1458506637977/Giraffidae-phylogeny-drawn-in-BEAST-v175-35-with-red-deer-Cervus-elaphus-as-an_Q320.jpg)
![Figure 2. Giraffidae phylogeny drawn in BEAST v1.7.5 [ 35 ] , with red...](profile/Peter-Galbusera/publication/263778817/figure/fig2/AS:296428661428228@1447685508940/Giraffidae-phylogeny-drawn-in-BEAST-v175-35-with-red-deer-Cervus-elaphus-as_Q320.jpg)
The okapi is an endangered, evolutionarily distinctive even-toed ungulate classified within the giraffidae family that is endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The okapi is currently under major anthropogenic threat, yet to date nothing is known about its genetic structure and evolutionary history, information important for conservation mana...
To date the International Buffalo Consortium has sequenced almost 80 river and swamp animals from different countries (Brazil, Pakistan, Italy, Iran, China and the Philippines). Past demographic events were deduced from whole genome sequences. The pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent (PSMC) developed by Li and Durbin (2011) was applied to new...
European white stork are long considered to diverge to eastern and western migration pools as a result of independent overwintering flyways. In relatively recent times, the western and northern distribution has been subject to dramatic population declines and country-specific extirpations. A number of independent reintroduction programs were starte...
Self-sustaining captive population must be genetically managed to minimize loss of genetic
diversity, inbreeding and adaptation to captivity. Accurate genetic management of a captive population
relies mostly on pedigree analysis. However, the majority of the pedigrees in captive
breeding programmes are far from perfect for various reasons. Most imp...
In this essay we explore questions on how to increase the visibility and utility of genetic information for biodiversity managers and policy makers. This is discussed in the light of Aichi CBD Target 13, which for the first time impels signatories to minimise genetic erosion and safeguard genetic diversity. Drawing on qualitative results from a que...
Conservation breeding programmes often rely on intensive genetic management of the captive population. However, the relatedness between individuals and individual mean kinship are often estimated based on pedigree records, which are frequently incomplete or unreliable. Depending on the quality of a studbook (e.g. expressed as percentage of pedigree...
Habitat fragmentation can restrict geneflow, reduce neighbourhood effective population size, and increase genetic drift and inbreeding in small, isolated habitat remnants. The extent to which habitat fragmentation leads to population fragmentation, however, differs among landscapes and taxa. Commonly, researchers use information on the current stat...
The White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) has an extensive European breeding distribution. There have been significant demographic changes since the 1930s, with country-specific
extinctions throughout the western distribution since the mid-1940s. Following various reintroduction programs significant
concerns have been raised about the geographic origins of...
Inbreeding and the loss of genetic diversity may lower fitness and reduce the potential for a population to adapt to changing environments. In small populations, for example in captive populations or populations of endangered species, this can have considerable consequences for their survival. We investigated the effects of inbreeding on infant mor...
Golden-headed lion tamarins (GHLTs), Leontopithecus chrysomelas, are small fruit-eating primates endemic to the Atlantic Rainforest of South-Bahia, and endangered because of the disappearance of their habitat (2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species). The Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest has a unique and extremely rich biodiversity, but continuing de...
Amphibians are in decline worldwide, and high altitude tropical areas appear to be the worst affected. This is in stark contrast
with current information we have on gene flow in amphibian populations which focus on temperate pond breeding species. Using
AFLP markers, we show that a small, direct-developing, leaf litter frog from the Taita Hills in...
We report the isolation and characterization of 15 (12 di-, 1 tri- and 2 tetranucleotide) microsatellite markers from Hippocampus capensis, the Knysna seahorse. This marker set allows the detection of a genetic bottleneck as shown in a captive population. Furthermore, we test their genotyping potential in eight other seahorse taxa.
This study investigated morphological characters and electrophoretic polymorphism at 25 protein loci in nine wild populations of the African clariid catfish Clarias gariepinus and seven wild populations of C. anguillaris. Two other clariid species, Clarias albopunctatus and Heterobranchus longifilis, were used as outgroups in the allozyme study. Mo...
Red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) are widely distributed throughout Eurasia, occurring in many types of coniferous and mixed-deciduous forests. In fragmented landscapes, small and partly isolated populations with low immigration rates show reduced genetic diversity, but reforestation can increase gene flow and restore levels of genetic variation in...
We examined the effects of habitat fragmentation of the white-starred robin Pogonocichla stellata metapopulation in the Taita Hills archipelago, a hotspot for biodiversity which was fragmented approximately 40 years ago. Using seven microsatellite markers, we analysed the robin's genetic structure and tested for equilibrium between migration and dr...
Microsatellite analysis and computer simulations strongly suggested that a culvert, i.e. a connection between two river stretches by a narrow tube underneath an artificial channel, was not a migration barrier for the endangered bullhead Cottus gobio.
Microsatellite analysis and computer simulations strongly suggested that a culvert, i.e. a connection between two river stretches by a narrow tube underneath an artificial channel, was not a migration barrier for the endangered bullhead Cottus gobio. (C) 2004 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.
To investigate whether changes in land use and associated forest patch turnover affected genetic diversity and structure of the forest herb Primula elatior, historical data on landscape changes were combined with a population genetic analysis using dominant amplified fragment length polymorphism markers. Based on nine topographic maps, landscape hi...
Inbreeding depression has been hypothesized to drive the evolution of mating systems and dispersal. Some studies have shown that inbreeding strongly affects survival and/or fecundity, but other studies suggest that fitness consequences of inbreeding are less detrimental or more complex. We studied consequences of mating with a relative in a populat...
As habitat disturbance and inbreeding increasingly stress natural populations, ecologists are in urgent need of simple estimators to measure their impact. It has been argued that developmental instability (DI) could be such a measure. Observed associations between DI and environmental or genetic stress, however, are largely inconsistent. We here te...
Studies of inbreeding depression or kin selection require knowledge of relatedness between individuals. If pedigree information is lacking, one has to rely on genotypic information to infer relatedness. In this study we investigated the performance (absolute and relative) of 10 marker-based relatedness estimators using allele frequencies at microsa...
Developing species specific microsatellite primers can be avoidedby using existing markers which amplify across species. However,for passerines, such cross-species markers are mostly lackingand few guidelines exist for selecting them from the wide rangeof existing markers. Here cross-species amplification tests of 40microsatellite primers in 13 pas...
Gynogenesis is thought to be a useful method to generate fully inbred lines in teleost fish. Endomitosis, which refers to the inhibition of first mitosis, should lead to fully homozygous offspring. In this study, the optimal conditions to induce mitogynogenesis (endomitosis) by heat shocking of the eggs were determined in the African catfish Claria...
Analysis of 155 individuals with seven polymorphicmicrosatellite DNA markers showed significant genetic differentiationbetween the only three remaining subpopulations of the globally,critically-endangered Taita thrush. Small, recently-disturbedsubpopulations such as studied here may violate the assumptions ofmutation-drift and gene flow-drift equil...
Isolation of a population can result in decreased genetic variability as a consequence of inbreeding, random genetic drift and reduced gene flow. This effect is reinforced when it concerns a small population. We used two molecular techniques, multilocus minisatellite DNA fingerprinting and microsatellite analysis, to compare population genetic para...
The study of sex-ratio patterns in threatened bird species has yielded crucial information with regard to their conservation and management. In the case of sexually monomorphic species, i.e. species that cannot be sexed by their appearance, DNA-based sexing techniques are increasingly applied. We present data on the sexing of adult Taita thrushes,...
A sample of African Clarias catfishes from the Senegal River was studied using morphometry, allozyme variation, microsatellites and RFLPs of mitochondrial DNA. They all confirmed the presence of two species, C. gariepinus and C. anguillaris. The two species were closely related genetically and no diagnostic loci were found in allozymes and microsat...
The effect of a simultaneous temperature and hydrostatic pressure shock applied a few minutes after activation of the egg was evaluated by monitoring the short-term survival rate of polar-body gynogenetic embryos of African catfish, Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822). The aim was to evaluate the interdependence of temperature and pressure in retai...
Keywords:microsatellites;DNA;Clarias gariepinus;African catfish
Meiogynogenesis of the African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) was optimized by altering the intensity, duration and timing of application of pressure, heat or cold shocks shortly after activation of the egg with sperm which had been genetically inactivated with UV irradiation. The distributions of the survival rates showed a unimodal (heat and hydros...
The transfer of exogenous DNA in fish represents a powerful strategy to study the regulation of gene expression in vivo. The African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) was chosen for this study because of its scientific and economic importance due to its easy husbandry, its short developmental period, and its value as a protein source in Africa and Asia....
Projects
Projects (5)
This research project aims to predict the potential shifts in the distribution of the endangered Golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas) in the Atlantic forests of Brazil, by modelling the species’ climatological suitability under scenarios of future climate change. Through this case study within the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) for Global Biodiversity, we test climate data provided by this new operational climate service and evaluate its usefulness. The obtained information is critical to further improve the species’ conservation action plans and guide future management decisions.
Within the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S https://www.copernicus.eu/en/services/climate-change) programme, a consortium led by research centre VITO (Belgium) and in which the KMDA (Antwerp Zoo Society) is a partner, has recently started the development of an operational global climate service for the biodiversity and ecosystem services communities.
