Elephant damage good for frogs
But according to a new study, this systematic demolition of the
environment helps to improve the local species richness.
Working in mixed savannah woodlands on the 4,300-hectare Ndarakwai Ranch in northeastern Tanzania, a team of scientists from Georgia Southern University identified areas of high, medium and low elephant damage.
They then surveyed these areas for reptiles and amphibians, and compared the results with surveys of a 250-hectare area that had been fenced off to protect it from large herbivores.
The areas with the greatest damage had the highest number of species (nine lizards and nine amphibians), while the fenced area had the lowest (five lizards and three amphibians). The scientists concluded that the difference was down to the so-called ‘ecological engineering’ being carried out by the elephants. ‘Craters and coarse woody debris formed by uprooted and broken trees augmented the number of refuges against predators and dessication,’ they wrote in a paper published in the African Journal of Ecology.
The scientists went on to suggest that further research was needed to determine the full impact of free-ranging elephants on other animals, in particular arboreal species.
December 2010
Working in mixed savannah woodlands on the 4,300-hectare Ndarakwai Ranch in northeastern Tanzania, a team of scientists from Georgia Southern University identified areas of high, medium and low elephant damage.
They then surveyed these areas for reptiles and amphibians, and compared the results with surveys of a 250-hectare area that had been fenced off to protect it from large herbivores.
The areas with the greatest damage had the highest number of species (nine lizards and nine amphibians), while the fenced area had the lowest (five lizards and three amphibians). The scientists concluded that the difference was down to the so-called ‘ecological engineering’ being carried out by the elephants. ‘Craters and coarse woody debris formed by uprooted and broken trees augmented the number of refuges against predators and dessication,’ they wrote in a paper published in the African Journal of Ecology.
The scientists went on to suggest that further research was needed to determine the full impact of free-ranging elephants on other animals, in particular arboreal species.
December 2010
|
FIND OUT WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT ON TWITTER:
| |
 |
