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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Rules of habitat use by elephants Loxodonta africana in southern Africa: Insights for regional management
ORYX, Volume 42, No. 1, Year 2008
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Description
Managers in southern Africa are concerned that continually increasing elephant populations will degrade ecosystems. Culling, translocation and birth control are flawed solutions. An alternative is providing elephants more space but this hinges on identifying landscape preferences. We examined two diverse ecosystems and uncovered similarities in elephant habitat use, expressing these as 'rules'. We considered arid Etosha National Park, (Namibia) and the tropical woodlands of Tembe Elephant Park (South Africa) and Maputo Elephant Reserve (Mozambique). Landscape data consisted of vegetation types, distances from water and settlements. To surmount issues of scale and availability we incorporated elephant movements as a function that declined as distance from an elephant's location increased. This presumes that elephants optimize trade-offs between benefiting from high-quality resources and costs to find them. Under a likelihood-based approach we determined the important variables and shapes of their relationships to evaluate and compare models separated by gender, season and location. After considering elephants' preferences for areas nearby, habitat use usually increased with proximity to water in all locations. Elephants sought places with high proportions of vegetation, especially when neighbouring areas had low vegetative cover. Lastly, elephants avoided human settlements (when present), and cows more so than bulls. In caricature, elephants preferred to move little, drink easily, eat well, and avoid people. If one makes more areas available, elephants will probably favour areas near water with high vegetative cover (of many different types) and away from people. Managers can oblige elephants' preferences by supplying them. If so, they should anticipate higher impacts to neighbouring vegetation. © 2008 Fauna and Flora International.
Authors & Co-Authors
Harris, Grant M.
United States, Durham
Duke University
United States, Albuquerque
U.s. Fish and Wildlife Service
Russell, Gareth J.
United States, Newark
New Jersey Institute of Technology
United States, Newark
Rutgers University-newark
van Aarde, Rudolph J.
South Africa, Pretoria
University of Pretoria
Pimm, Stuart L.
United States, Durham
Duke University
South Africa, Pretoria
University of Pretoria
Statistics
Citations: 139
Authors: 4
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1017/S0030605308000483
ISSN:
00306053
e-ISSN:
13653008
Research Areas
Environmental
Study Locations
Mozambique
Namibia
South Africa