Project:

Identification of West African scat samples as African leopards (P. p. pardus) and investigation of biodiversity in populations

Students:

Jaden Oh, Joshua Ashley

Institution:

Fordham University,

Mentors:

Danielle Lema

Abstract:

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the African leopard (Panthera pardus) as a vulnerable species; however, from the 9 subspecies recognized based on phylogenetic analyses (Miththapala et. al. 1996; Uphyrkina et. al. 2001), all but the subspecies P. p. pardus (African leopard) and P. p. fusca (Indian leopard) are listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered (Stein et. al. 2016). Prior phylogenetic studies of the African leopard specifically have been limited by inadequate sampling and biases, and thus did not represent the molecular differences relating to leopard population diversity (Miththapala et. al. 1996; Uphyrkina et. al. 2001). This study will aim to identify scat samples from the West African and Congo River Basin regions as originating from African leopards and provide information on the genetic variation between said leopard samples, thereby giving further analysis on the phylogenetic variations of African panthers.

Poster:

Team samples: