Home range and space use by African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study examined the African elephant's (Loxodonta africana) seasonal space use and movement using elephant telemetry data in Hwange National Park. The adaptivelocal convex hull (a-LoCoH) was adopted to understand the elephant movement metrics and home range. Paired t test was used to compare the mean seasonal speed of each group (n = 10) of elephants, while the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to determine differences in the 50% and 90% home range. Results show that mean elephant movement speed significantly differed (t = −3.07, df = , p < 0.01) for all elephant groups across seasons. Moreover, significant differences (W = 3, Z = 2.4973, p < 0.012) were observed between core a-LoCoH home-range distributions for the wet and dry seasons. However, no significant differences (W = 10, Z = 1.7838, p > 0.05) were detected between the two seasons for the total (90%) a-LoCoH ranges. NDVI, Distance to water sources and Slope were positively related with elephant movement speed while Aspect and Distance to roads were negatively related with elephant speed.These findings underscore the importance of resource variability in driving elephant movement and foraging behaviour in a semi-arid savannah ecosystem.