Journal
BIOSCIENCE
Volume 64, Issue 6, Pages 487-495Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biu059
Keywords
conservation; ecology; land-use management; plant-animal interactions; tropical ecosystems
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [0196177, BSR-97-07477, 03-16402, 08-16453, 13-56034]
- National Geographic Society [4691-91, 9106-12]
- Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
- Museum of Paleontology
- Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley
- American Society of Mammalogists
- University of California Vice Chancellor's Fund for Research
- Patricia Robert Harris Fellowship fund
- Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation
- James Smithson Fund of the Smithsonian Institution
- US Fish and Wildlife Service African Elephant Conservation Fund [98210-0-G563]
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1256034] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0196177] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [1313822] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1256034] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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African savannas are home to an abundant and diverse assemblage of wild herbivores, but the very grasses that sustain these wild herds also make savannas attractive to humans and their livestock We used the Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment to investigate the ecological effects of different combinations of native and domestic grazers. The experimental removal of large grazing mammals set into motion a cascade of consequences, beginning with the doubling in abundance of a small grazing mammal, the pouched mouse (Saccostomus mearnsi). The presence of abundant mice attracted venomous snakes such as the olive hissing snake (Psammophis mossambicus); devastated seedlings of the dominant tree (Acacia drepanolobium); and doubted the abundance of fleas, which potentially increased the risk of transmission of flea-borne pathogens. Together, these results show the potential for the loss of large mammals to have cryptic consequences for African savannas, with important and often undesirable repercussions for humans.
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