Deer of the World Ecology, Conservation and Management

Mario Melletti   (BSc, MSc, PhD) is an Italian freelance wildlife biologist and member of the African Buffalo Initiative Group and the Wild Pig Specialist Group, both part of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. During his PhD studies he worked at the Department of Animal and Human Biology of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy and at the Department of Conservation Biology of the Estación Biólogica de Doñana (CSIC-EBD) Sevilla, Spain. For about two and a half years, he has been studying the ecology and behaviour of the forest buffalo in the Central African Republic. Mario has conducted research on a number of other large mammals and has participated in several projects and surveys on African mammals. He has also worked in other African countries including Burkina Faso, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In 2010, he began working with Cambridge University Press as an editor of a series of books on the conservation and management of large mammals. Books Mario has edited with Cambridge University Press include Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour of Wild Cattle: Implications for Conservation (2014), Ecology, Conservation and Management of Wild Pigs and Peccaries (2017), Bears of the World: Ecology, Conservation and Management (2020). Mario has also edited the following books published by Springer Nature: Tapirs of the World: Ecology, Conservation and Management (2024), Rhinos of the World: Ecology, Conservation and Management (2025) and Movement Ecology of Afrotropical Forest Mammals (2023). He is the author of about 70 scientific publications and book chapters.

Stefano Focardi is a senior researcher at the Institute for Complex Systems of the CNR in Florence, Italy, where he leads the large mammal research team. He is also Professor of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of Florence and Invited Professor at the University of Lyon, France. He also leads a collaboration with INRA in Toulouse, France. He is the author of 110 scientific articles and 26 environmental management documents. He is also the scientific coordinator of EUROBOAR, a European organisation for research into the biology of wild boar, and an active member of the EURODEER INITIATIVE. He is a specialist in the biology of roe deer and fallow deer and has organised several international meetings on these two cervid species. His current research interests include ungulate demography, avian and mammalian movement ecology, and population assessment.