DataSheet_1_Women’s thirty-year contribution to cheetah conservation: An insight into volunteer-based conservation program supported by female scientists.docx

Women make up a small percentage of the scientific community, including conservation. Today, conservation efforts are vital for the survival of many species, however there is a gender bias within the conservation field. Encouraging more women into conservation could be a key to increasing efficiency and success in conservation goals of organizations and governments. Here we investigate the long running Earthwatch, working guest and intern volunteer programs of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) to understand women’s involvement with volunteer based conservation, and questionnaire data to understand women’s contribution to conservation after volunteering and what challenges women face in conservation. Our results showed there was significantly more female volunteers than male volunteers (p-value <0.000) and on average, females contributed to 73.7% of the volunteer population annually. Volunteer’s age at time of volunteering varied between the three volunteer programs. Women’s motivations for volunteering and challenges that women face in conservation was dependent on the volunteers’ age. CCF’s holistic approach to conservation, volunteers’ love for cheetahs and ability to gain practical skills were the leading motivations why women volunteered with CCF. Many (87%) of the female interns said volunteering was a means of helping them gain employment. Women’s credibility, family responsibility and personal safety were the main challenges that women face working in conservation today. Addressing gender disparities in every stage of career progression will lead to overall improved conservation outcomes.</p

SAA and Genotype Data

This excel file contains the genotypic data for the SAA1A SNP for cheetahs. Fixed factors and individual SAA concentrations are also provided

Status and density of the threatened Kori Bustard Ardeotis kori in a woodland savanna

Many grassland habitats have disappeared or undergone substantial change worldwide and many obligatory grassland animal species have populations that are at risk of extinction. The Kori Bustard Ardeotis kori is the largest flying bird native to Africa and an open savanna specialist, but no research on the population ecology of the Kori Bustard in Namibia has been published in the last 30 years. Using distance sampling from driven transects, we estimated 0.34 ± 0.1 birds km−2 in the 2021–2022 calendar year, which projects a population of 2 study area. We found no significant variation in density estimates among seasons from 2016 to 2021. A nationwide status survey and investigation of potential limiting factors, including analysis of survival rates and connectivity between populations, will be important undertakings to better inform conservation strategies for this imperilled species in Namibia and in other range countries with data deficiency.</p

Additional file 2 of Genomic legacy of the African cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus

Supplemental tables. Table S1. Sequenced cheetah reads for de novo genome assembly. Table S2. Re-sequenced cheetah reads for population analyses. Table S3. Estimated cheetah genome size. Table S4. Cheetah genome assembly information. Table S5. Reference-assisted assembly of cheetah chromosomes. Table S6. RepeatMasker results for transposable elements in carnivore genomes. Table S7. Total length of repeat regions in cheetah. Table S8. Tandem repeats in five carnivore genomes. Table S9. Complex tandem repeat families. Table S10. Protein-coding gene annotation. Table S11. Non-coding RNA annotation. Table S12. Nuclear mitochondrial genes. Table S13. Lengths of cheetah synteny blocks. Table S14. Cheetah rearrangements. Table S15. Called SNV statistics. Table S16. SNV effects by impact. Table S17. SNV effects by functional class. Table S18. SNV effects by genomic region. Table S19. SNV locations relative to genes. Table S20. SNV distribution in cheetah genome. Table S21. SNV distribution in tiger genomes. Table S22. SNV locations and effects in coding genes of Felidae genomes. Table S23. SNV counts in genes in domestic cat and tigers. Table S24. SNV counts in genes in cheetahs. Table S25. Nucleotide diversity in mitochondrial genomes of mammals. Table S26. Nucleotide diversity in MHC class I and II genes. Table S27. Demographic models and their log-likelihood values. Table S28. Population data by DaDi. Table S29. Reproductive system genes with identified function. Table S30. Filtration of cheetah reproduction system genes. Table S31. Nucleotide diversity of masked assemblies. Table S32. Statistics on autosomal segmental duplications. (PDF 127 kb

Additional file 3 of Genomic legacy of the African cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus

Supplemental datasheets. Datasheet S1. List of cheetah-specific de novo predicted genes with functional domains annotated by InterPro scan. Datasheet S2. List of gene families in eight mammal species identified by protein homology. Datasheet S3. Results of gene family expansion and contraction analysis. Datasheet S4. CAFE results from gene family contraction and expansion analysis. Datasheet S5. Results of gene selection analysis. Datasheet S6. Reproductive system genes with damaging mutations. Datasheet S7. Segmental duplication genes. Datasheet S8. List of reproductive genes with segregated high effect mutations and corresponding genotypes of cheetah. (XLSX 711 kb