The purpose of this course was to expose the population genetics
approach and its potential use in various scientific and concrete
questions bound to small African rodent pests populations dynamics
(ranging from 0 to thousands of generations).

The lecture (in french) attached below provides some clues
(with references) on the way these questions can be dealt with using
population genetics. It has been divided into four sets of slides : 

    1.  Some background information on population genetics and 
         microsatellite markers

Illustrative examples from recent research, focusing on African rodents 
known to be agricultural pests or reservoirs of human diseases : 
 
    2.  Population genetics and invasion of Rattus rattus in Senegal
         (courtesy of J.F. Cosson & A. Estoup)
    3.  Population genetics and epidemiology: Rattus rattus, a reservoir of
         plague in Madagascar 
    4.  Population genetics of pests: the case of Sahelian rodents of the
         genus Mastomys