Are elephants attracted by deforested areas in miombo woodlands?

Amaya, Paola C.; Nourtier, Marie; Montfort, Frédérique; Fusari, Alessandro; Randrianary, Telina; Richard, Emmanuelle; Prin, Thomas; Valls‐Fox, Hugo

doi:10.1111/aje.12882

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Despite sustaining a diverse plant life, mainly due to the high annual rainfall (up to 700 mm/year ;Frost, 1996;Godlee et al, 2020;Muvengwi et al, 2020), these habitats are characterized by shallow, nutrient-poor soils, and by unpalatable grasses (Frost, 1996;Loveridge and Moe, 2004;Montfort et al, 2021). Coupled with the scarcity of surface water during the dry season, and with annual fires depleting standing vegetation biomass, these factors contribute to differences in diversity and abundance of large mammal species compared to other savanna-woodland ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the dry season when abundance drops (Caro, 1999;Waltert et al, 2009;Kavanna et al, 2014;Amaya et al, 2021;Davis et al, 2021). However, little is known about the effects of this environment on communities of small-sized mammals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Drivers of Habitat Use by Meso Mammals in a Miombo Ecosystem in the Issa Valley, Tanzania

et al. 2022

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Vast stretches of East and Southern Africa are characterized by a mosaic of deciduous woodlands and evergreen riparian forests, commonly referred to as “miombo,” hosting a high diversity of plant and animal life. However, very little is known about the communities of small-sized mammals inhabiting this heterogeneous biome. We here document the diversity and abundance of 0.5–15 kg sized mammals (“meso-mammals”) in a relatively undisturbed miombo mosaic in western Tanzania, using 42 camera traps deployed over a 3 year-period. Despite a relatively low diversity of meso-mammal species (n = 19), these comprised a mixture of savanna and forest species, with the latter by far the most abundant. Our results show that densely forested sites are more intensely utilized than deciduous woodlands, suggesting riparian forest within the miombo matrix might be of key importance to meso-mammal populations. Some species were captured significantly more often in proximity to (and sometimes feeding on) termite mounds (genus Macrotermes), as they are a crucial food resource. There was some evidence of temporal partitioning in activity patterns, suggesting hetero-specific avoidance to reduce foraging competition. We compare our findings to those of other miombo sites in south-central Africa.

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