Quantifying the ecological success of a community-based wildlife conservation area in Tanzania
In Tanzania, community-based natural resource management of wildlife occurs through the creation of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). WMAs consist of multiple villages designating land for wildlife conservation, and sharing a portion of subsequent tourism revenues. Nineteen WMAs are currently operating, encompassing 7% of Tanzania’s land area, with 19 more WMAs planned. The ecological success or […]
Spatial variation in giraffe demography: a test of 2 paradigms
Examination of spatial variation in demography among or within populations of the same species is a topic of growing interest in ecology. We examined whether spatial variation in demography of a tropical megaherbivore followed the “temporal paradigm” or the “adult survival paradigm” of ungulate population dynamics formulated from temperate-zone studies. We quantified spatial variation in […]
Seeing spots: quantifying mother-offspring similarity and assessing fitness consequences of coat pattern traits in a wild population of giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis)
Polymorphic phenotypes of mammalian coat coloration have been important to the study of genetics and evolution, but less is known about the inheritance and fitness consequences of individual variation in complex coat pattern traits such as spots and stripes. Giraffe coat markings are highly complex and variable and it has been hypothesized that variation in […]
Fission–fusion dynamics of a megaherbivore are driven by ecological, anthropogenic, temporal, and social factors
Fission–fusion dynamics hypothetically enable animals to exploit dispersed and ephemeral food resources while minimizing predation risk. Disentangling factors affecting group size and composition of fission–fusion species facilitates their management and conservation. We used a 6-year data set of 2888 group formations of Masai giraffes in Tanzania to investigate determinants of social group size and structure. […]
Woodland loss and restoration in a savanna park: a 20-year experiment
Woodland loss is a major cause of biodiversity decline in African savanna parks. Decisions about whether remedial steps are possible and warranted depend on the cause. Climate, fire, elephants and human impact, often in combination, have been cited as major causes. The almost complete extinction of woodland in Amboseli National Park since 1950 has been […]
The impact of age-class and social context on fecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels in free-ranging male giraffes
One of the primary sources of perceived stress is the social environment of an animal and the interactions with conspecifics. An essential component of the response to a stressor is the activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical axis, which results amongst others in a temporal increase in circulating glucocorticoid (GC) levels. Giraffes occur in a highly flexible […]
Internal parasites of giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis) from Etosha National Park, Namibia
During three seasonal periods, parasitological samples were collected from six giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis) in the Etosha National Park, Namibia. The helminths recovered included Parabronema skrjabini, Skrjabinema spp., Haemonchus mitchelli and Echinococcus sp. larvae; Cytauxzoon sp. was the only hematozoan found. The low mean abundances of all helminths which ranged from 18 to 531 may […]
Population structure of giraffes is affected by management in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya
Giraffe populations in East Africa have declined in the past thirty years yet there has been limited research on this species. This study had four objectives: i) to provide a baseline population assessment for the two largest populations of Rothschild’s giraffes in Kenya, ii) to assess whether there are differences in population structure between the […]
Seasonal changes in social networks of giraffes
Fission-fusion social societies allow animals to respond in a flexible manner to environmental changes by adapting the size and composition of a group. Although group members change frequently in these systems, associations with preferred partners may be found. In this study, we examined the grouping patterns of a population of 80 individual giraffes in a […]
Antipredator behaviour of African ungulates around human settlements
As human populations grow and come into more frequent contact with wildlife, it is important to understand how anthropogenic disturbance alters wildlife behaviour. Using fine-scale spatial analyses, we examined how proximity to human settlements affects antipredator responses of ungulates. We studied seven common ungulate species (Kirk’s dik-dik, Thomson’s gazelle, impala, common warthog, common wildebeest, common […]