Severe drought and calf survival in elephants
Climate change in Africa is expected to lead to a higher occurrence of severe droughts in semi-arid and arid ecosystems. Understanding how animal populations react to such events is thus crucial for addressing future challenges for wildlife management and conservation. We explored how gender, age, m...
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Published in | Biology letters (2005) Vol. 4; no. 5; pp. 541 - 544 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London
The Royal Society
23.10.2008
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Climate change in Africa is expected to lead to a higher occurrence of severe droughts in semi-arid and arid ecosystems. Understanding how animal populations react to such events is thus crucial for addressing future challenges for wildlife management and conservation. We explored how gender, age, mother's experience and family group characteristics determined calf survival in an elephant population during a severe drought in Tanzania in 1993. Young males were particularly sensitive to the drought and calf loss was higher among young mothers than among more experienced mothers. We also report high variability in calf mortality between different family groups, with family groups that remained in the National Park suffering heavy calf loss, compared with the ones that left the Park. This study highlights how severe droughts can dramatically affect early survival of large herbivores and suggests that extreme climatic events might act as a selection force on vertebrate populations, allowing only individuals with the appropriate behaviour and/or knowledge to survive. |
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Bibliography: | istex:501EA027D9D82F6F95D4DC3D006AB16DB9DDFFBB href:541.pdf ark:/67375/V84-5M8GCVQS-X ArticleID:rsbl20080370 ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1744-9561 1744-957X |
DOI: | 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0370 |