Institution
Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute
Facility•Arusha, Tanzania•
About: Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute is a facility organization based out in Arusha, Tanzania. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & National park. The organization has 130 authors who have published 315 publications receiving 11293 citations.
Topics: Population, National park, Biodiversity, Carnivore, Wildlife
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: Biodiversity allows both predation (top-down) and resource limitation (bottom-up) to act simultaneously to affect herbivore populations.
Abstract: There are many cases where animal populations are affected by predators and resources in terrestrial ecosystems1,2,3, but the factors that determine when one or the other predominates remain poorly understood4,5. Here we show, using 40 years of data from the highly diverse mammal community of the Serengeti ecosystem, East Africa, that the primary cause of mortality for adults of a particular species is determined by two factors—the species diversity of both the predators and prey and the body size of that prey species relative to other prey and predators. Small ungulates in Serengeti are exposed to more predators, owing to opportunistic predation, than are larger ungulates; they also suffer greater predation rates, and experience strong predation pressure. A threshold occurs at prey body sizes of ∼150 kg, above which ungulate species have few natural predators and exhibit food limitation. Thus, biodiversity allows both predation (top-down) and resource limitation (bottom-up) to act simultaneously to affect herbivore populations. This result may apply generally in systems where there is a diversity of predators and prey.
698 citations
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TL;DR: The Eastern Arc Mountains are renowned in Africa for high concentrations of endemic species of animals and plants as mentioned in this paper, split as follows: 10 mammal, 19 bird, 29 reptile and 38 amphibian species.
457 citations
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TL;DR: It is concluded that there are no insurmountable problems to canine rabies control in most of Africa; that elimination of dog rabies is epidemiologically and practically feasible through mass vaccination of domestic dogs; and that domestic dog vaccination provides a cost-effective approach to the prevention and elimination of human rabies deaths.
Abstract: Background
Canine rabies causes many thousands of human deaths every year in Africa, and continues to increase throughout much of the continent.
328 citations
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TL;DR: It is shown that a precipitous decline in enforcement in 1977 resulted in a large increase in poaching and decline of many species, and expanded budgets and antipoaching patrols since the mid-1980s have greatly reduced poaching and allowed populations of buffalo, elephants, and rhinoceros to rebuild.
Abstract: Wildlife within protected areas is under increasing threat from bushmeat and illegal trophy trades, and many argue that enforcement within protected areas is not sufficient to protect wildlife. We examined 50 years of records from Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and calculated the history of illegal harvest and enforcement by park authorities. We show that a precipitous decline in enforcement in 1977 resulted in a large increase in poaching and decline of many species. Conversely, expanded budgets and antipoaching patrols since the mid-1980s have greatly reduced poaching and allowed populations of buffalo, elephants, and rhinoceros to rebuild.
317 citations
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University of Würzburg1, University of Bayreuth2, University of Marburg3, University of Göttingen4, University of Ulm5, University of Bern6, University of Copenhagen7, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology8, Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology9, Technische Universität München10, College of African Wildlife Management11, University of Jena12, University of Oldenburg13, University of KwaZulu-Natal14, University of Dar es Salaam15, Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute16, Goethe University Frankfurt17, Kazan Federal University18, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute19
TL;DR: The study reveals that climate can modulate the effects of land use on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and points to a lowered resistance of ecosystems in climatically challenging environments to ongoing land-use changes in tropical mountainous regions.
Abstract: Agriculture and the exploitation of natural resources have transformed tropical mountain ecosystems across the world, and the consequences of these transformations for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are largely unknown1-3. Conclusions that are derived from studies in non-mountainous areas are not suitable for predicting the effects of land-use changes on tropical mountains because the climatic environment rapidly changes with elevation, which may mitigate or amplify the effects of land use4,5. It is of key importance to understand how the interplay of climate and land use constrains biodiversity and ecosystem functions to determine the consequences of global change for mountain ecosystems. Here we show that the interacting effects of climate and land use reshape elevational trends in biodiversity and ecosystem functions on Africa's largest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania). We find that increasing land-use intensity causes larger losses of plant and animal species richness in the arid lowlands than in humid submontane and montane zones. Increases in land-use intensity are associated with significant changes in the composition of plant, animal and microorganism communities; stronger modifications of plant and animal communities occur in arid and humid ecosystems, respectively. Temperature, precipitation and land use jointly modulate soil properties, nutrient turnover, greenhouse gas emissions, plant biomass and productivity, as well as animal interactions. Our data suggest that the response of ecosystem functions to land-use intensity depends strongly on climate; more-severe changes in ecosystem functioning occur in the arid lowlands and the cold montane zone. Interactions between climate and land use explained-on average-54% of the variation in species richness, species composition and ecosystem functions, whereas only 30% of variation was related to single drivers. Our study reveals that climate can modulate the effects of land use on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and points to a lowered resistance of ecosystems in climatically challenging environments to ongoing land-use changes in tropical mountainous regions.
275 citations
Authors
Showing all 132 results
Name | H-index | Papers | Citations |
---|---|---|---|
Andrew P. Dobson | 98 | 322 | 44211 |
Craig Packer | 74 | 184 | 18493 |
Anthony R. E. Sinclair | 71 | 162 | 21417 |
Tim Caro | 64 | 202 | 14275 |
Sarah Cleaveland | 63 | 235 | 15007 |
H. Bradley Shaffer | 58 | 164 | 10691 |
John M. Fryxell | 56 | 141 | 11810 |
Toby A. Gardner | 56 | 141 | 15640 |
Rob Marchant | 44 | 201 | 6390 |
Katie Hampson | 40 | 123 | 5758 |
Sarah M. Durant | 38 | 90 | 4497 |
Tiziana Lembo | 37 | 84 | 4353 |
Meggan E. Craft | 29 | 103 | 2906 |
Frode Fossøy | 24 | 67 | 1758 |
Robert D. Fyumagwa | 23 | 88 | 1573 |