Elephants and Savanna Woodland Ecosystems: A Study from Chobe National Park, Botswana (Conservation Science and Practice)

During the nineteenth century, ivory hunting caused a substantial decrease of elephant numbers in southern Africa. Soon after that, populations of many other large and medium-sized herbivores went into steep decline due to the rinderpest pandemic in the 1890s. These two events provided an opportunity for woodland establishment in areas previously intensively utilized by elephants and other herbivores. The return of elephants to currently protected areas of their former range has greatly influenced vegetation locally and the resulting potential negative effects on biodiversity are causing concern among stakeholders, managers, and scientists. This book focuses on the ecological effects of the increasing elephant population in northern Botswana, presenting the importance of the elephants for the heterogeneity of the system, and showing that elephant ecology involves much wider spatiotemporal scales than was previously thought. Drawing on the results of their research, the authors discuss elephant-caused effects on vegetation in nutrient-rich and nutrient-poor savannas, and the potential competition between elephants on the one hand and browsers and mixed feeders on the other. Ultimately this text provides a comprehensive review of ecological processes in African savannas, covering long-term ecosystem changes and human-wildlife conflicts. It summarises new knowledge on the ecology of the sub-humid African savanna ecosystems to advance the general functional understanding of savanna ecosystems across moisture and nutrient gradients. List Of Contributors -- Foreword / Norman Owen-smith -- Preface -- Part I. The Chobe Ecosystems. 1. Introduction / Christina Skarpe And Stein R. Moe ; 2. The Chobe Environment / Christina Skarpe And Susan Ringrose ; 3. Elephant-mediated Ecosystem Processes In Kalahari-sand Woodlands / Johan T. Du Toit, Stein R. Moe And Christina Skarpe -- Part Ii. The Substrate. 4. Historical Changes Of Vegetation In The Chobe Area / Christina Skarpe, Håkan Hytteborn, Stein R. Moe And Per Arild Aarrestad ; 5. Vegetation : Between Soils And Herbivores / Per Arild Aarrestad, Håkan Hytteborn, Gaseitsiwe Masunga And Christina Skarpe --^ Part Iii. The Agent. 6. Guns, Ivory And Disease : Past Influences On The Present Status Of Botswana's Elephants And Their Habitats / Mark. E. Vandewalle And Kathy A. Alexander ; 7. The Chobe Elephants : One Species, Two Niches / Sigbjørn Stakke And Johan T. Du Toit ; 8. Surface Water And Elephant Ecology : Lessons From A Waterhole-driven Ecosystem, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe / Simon Chamaillé-jammes, Marion Valeix, Hillary Madzikanda And Hervé Fritz -- Part Iv. Controllers. 9. Soil As Controller Of And Responder To Elephant Activity / Christina Skarpe, Gaseitsiwe Masunga, Per Arild Aarrestad And Peter G.h. Frost ; 10. Impala As Controllers Of Elephant-driven Change Within A Savanna Ecosystem / Stein R. Moe, Lucas Rutina, Håkan Hytteborn And Johan T. Du Toit ; 11. Buffalo And Elephants : Competition And Facilitation In The Dry Season On The Chobe Floodplain / Duncan J. Halley, Cyril Taolo And Stein R. Moe --^ Part V. Responders. 12. Plant-herbivore Interactions / Christina Skarpe, Roger Bergström, Shimane Makhabu, Tuulikki Rooke, Håkan Hytteborn And Kjell Danell ; 13. Elephants And The Grazing And Browsing Guilds / Christina Skarpe, Stein R. Moe, Märtha Wallgren And Sigbjørn Stokke ; 14. Cascading Effects On Smaller Mammals And Gallinaceous Birds Of Elephant Impacts On Vegetation Structure / Sigbjørn Stokke, Sekgowa S. Motsumi, Thato B. Sejoe And Jon E. Swenson ; 15. The Chobe Riverfront Lion Population : A Large Predator As Responder To Elephant-induced Habitat Heterogeneity / Harry P. Andreassen, Gosiame Neo-mahupeleng, Øystein Flagstad And Per Wegge -- Part Vi. Elephants In Social-ecological Systems. 16. Human Dimensions Of Elephant Ecology / Eivin Røskaft, Thor Larsen, Rapelang Mojaphoko, A.h.m. Raihan Sarker And Craig Jackson ; 17. Elephants And Heterogeneity In Savanna Landscapes / Johan T. Du Toit, Christina Skarpe And Stein R. Moe. Edited By Christina Skarpe, Johan T. Du Toit And Stein R. Moe. Zsl's Logo On Title Page. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. BLURB TO COME! DO NOT USE TEXT BELOW! The proposed book will be composed of 16 chapters, each written by one lead author and 2-7 additional authors/contributors. The book draws on the results of five years research on the dynamics of an ecosystem where elephant and antelope populations were severely decimated more than a century ago, and then recovered. We show that both the decline and return of elephants caused profound ecosystem perturbations. A heterogeneity framework (Pickett et al. 2003) provides the conceptual structure of the book. Following Pickett et al. (2003) we consider the e