National Wildlife Management Centre, Animal and Plant Health Agency, Woodchester Park, Gloucestershire, GL10 3UJ, UK.
National Biodiversity Network, Broadway Business Centre, 32a Stoney Street, Lace Market, Nottingham, NG1 1LL, UK.
Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 21;7(1):276. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-00378-3.
The European badger (Meles meles) is of considerable interest in the UK as it is both a protected species and the main wildlife reservoir for bovine tuberculosis infection in cattle. While there have been three national badger surveys in the 1980s, 1990s and 2011-13, using the number of badger main setts as a proxy for the abundance of badger social groups, none has combined contemporary data on social group size at landscape and national scales. We estimated social group size by genotyping hair samples collected at 120 main setts across England and Wales and employing a capture-mark-recapture method based on genotypes. The estimated mean social group size in England and Wales was 6.74 (±0.63) badgers. There was considerable variation in badger social group size among Land Class Groups (LCGs), with a low of 2.67 in LCG3 and a high of 7.92 in LCG4. Combining these results with the recent Badger Sett Survey of England and Wales, we estimate there are approximately 485,000 badgers (95% confidence intervals 391,000-581,000) in England and Wales. Although direct comparison with previous estimates is not ideal owing to methodological differences, our results are consistent with a marked increase in the badger population of England and Wales since the 1980s.
欧洲獾（Meles meles）在英国具有相当大的研究意义，因为它既是一种受保护的物种，也是牛结核病感染牛的主要野生动物宿主。虽然在 20 世纪 80 年代、90 年代和 2011-2013 年进行了三次全国獾调查，但都使用獾主要巢穴的数量作为獾社会群体丰度的替代指标，没有一次调查将景观和国家尺度上的当代社会群体大小数据结合起来。我们通过对英格兰和威尔士 120 个主巢穴收集的毛发样本进行基因分型，并采用基于基因型的捕获-标记-重捕方法来估计社会群体大小。在英格兰和威尔士，估计的平均社会群体大小为 6.74（±0.63）只獾。獾社会群体大小在土地类别组（LCG）之间存在很大差异，LCG3 最低为 2.67，LCG4 最高为 7.92。将这些结果与最近的英格兰和威尔士獾巢穴调查相结合，我们估计英格兰和威尔士大约有 485,000 只獾（95%置信区间为 391,000-581,000）。由于方法学上的差异，虽然与之前的估计进行直接比较并不理想，但我们的结果与自 20 世纪 80 年代以来英格兰和威尔士獾数量明显增加的情况一致。
